Hon. Alvin and Brian Zimmerman, father and son, have been listed in The Best Lawyers in America® for 2024 by BL Rankings: Hon. Alvin Zimmerman in Family Law since 2003 and Brian Zimmerman in Employment Law - Management since 2013. Brian is the managing partner of the Houston office of Spencer Fane LLP. Both are board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization: Hon. Alvin Zimmerman in Family Law and Brian Zimmerman in civil litigation. Brian has won multi-million verdicts in Texas and other states and has been successful in defending clients in high-stakes litigation cases. Gary Zimmerman, who practices with his father and brother in the firm, is fluent in Spanish and graduated with honors from Claremont McKenna. He concentrates his practice in the field of family law, including divorce, children’s issues, pre-nuptial and marriage agreements, and serves as a mediator in family law cases. Hon. Alvin Zimmerman is a former Texas State District Judge of both a family law court and later a civil district court. He is a Fellow in the IAM, CIArb and AAML and has qualified as a Distinguished Credentialed Mediator by the TX Mediator Credentialing Association. He is also a panelist for complex matters with the American Arbitration Association, ICA and the CPR. He has arbitrated over 400 cases and mediated over 2000 cases. He is the recipient of many professional awards for his family law and ADR practice. He also is the past chair of both the Family Law and ADR Sections of the Houston Bar Association and past chair of the State Bar of Texas ADR Section.
As a brief overview, Family Law is one of the most dynamic and complicated areas of law our firm deals with. Whether the issue is a co-habitation, premarital or post-marital agreement, a divorce, a modification of a divorce decree or other humankind issues, one size does not fit all cases, and we earnestly endeavor to work closely with our clients to find the methodology that meets our client’s needs: from reconciliation counseling to litigation or to use a more holistic method of dispute resolution through a collaborative divorce, and along those pathways the need to mediate or arbitrate a resolution of the dispute.
It has been said that Family Law captures the difficult emotions of a criminal law case and the complexities of a civil case. As to the comparison to a criminal case, whether it involves the high emotions attached to a child custody case or even working to resolve our client’s relationship issues with the children, includes resolving the rights, privileges, duties and access periods between parents and the child add greatly to the emotional considerations of our client. Resolving these matters and the negotiations involved adds to the stress: whether the two parents will be joint managing conservators or managing and possessory conservators and how to share decision-making and parent’s involvement in all child-related issues, which also includes if there will be a primary parent and which parent, if any, will have the final determination of decisions regarding the child if the parents do not otherwise agree. There is a need in custody matters to apply the standard of the best interest of the child and whether there has been any violence or abuse of a parent towards the child or the other parent. Sometimes, there may be a need for a psychologist to work with the parties and the attorneys to provide better insight into which parent may be better fit to be primary.
When comparing family cases to civil cases, each case will be carefully analyzed to determine issues that also frequently become emotional, i.e., whether a tort has been committed by one spouse against the other, division of and characterization of the couple’s property, and analysis of retirement plans to name a few subjects we deal with. There may be a need to determine if either spouse has wasted or hidden community property because if that is proven, a party may be entitled to recoup a portion of the value of that property, be it real, personal or mixed. Depending upon the complexity of the estate, a forensic accountant may be required to assist in the determination of the value of such reimbursement.
To stay abreast of new case law and statutory code provisions, our attorneys are required annually to undertake a significant number of hours studying Family Law (also known as Continuing Legal Education): Hon. Alvin Zimmerman, for over the past 20 years has exceeded the minimum requirements and has undertaken over 30 hours of course presentations per year.
