Houston Divorce & Family Law Attorney | Texas

The law firm of Laura Dale & Associates, P.C. provides clients with a full array of family law services. Laura is Board Certified in Family Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and Legal Counsel to the Consulate General of France, Houston Texas. Laura practices exclusively in the area of family law involving high conflict divorce and custody cases, international abduction and other cases brought under the Hague Convention. She is fluent in French.

Laura is a certified mediator, collaborative law attorney, and parenting coordinator under the Texas parenting coordinator statute. She received her JD from South Texas College of Law and is licensed by the Texas Supreme Court, and admitted to practice in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Texas Eastern District Court, the Texas Northern District Court, the Texas Southern District/Bankruptcy Court, the Texas Western Bankruptcy Court, and the Texas Western District Court.

Laura received a BA from the University of Texas in 1978, where she majored in psychology and anthropology. As an undergraduate she interned at the Austin State Hospital for two years, working with children and adolescents. She obtained a master's degree in psychophysiology and a doctoral degree in neuroscience from the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. There she served as a recherché attaché with the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique and published in several internationally recognized medical journals, including: Electro-encephalography and Clinical Neuro-physiology; Physiological Psychology; the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology; La Nouvelle Presse Medicale; Revue Francaise des Maladies Respiratoires; Journal de Physiologie.

Laura has an extensive business management background. Previously, she served as Vice President of Americans for Fair Taxation (AFFT), a non-profit, non-partisan, national advocacy group with a membership base of more than 250,000. Laura managed daily operations of the organization and a $15,000,000 budget. She supervised an extensive consulting staff and served as director of research for the organization. The AFFT economic research team included: Harvard University; Stanford University; Boston University; the Baker Institute at Rice University; MIT; the National Bureau of Economic Research; the Cato Institute; the Heritage Foundation; and the Argus Group. Currently, Laura serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Harris Country Hospital District Foundation, which raises funds for the district's multiple hospitals and clinics that serve the underinsured in the third most populous county in the United States, Harris County.

She is married to Robert Dale III, has two sons, Jacques and Robert, and is a native Houstonian.

Position	Organization	Location	Duration
Owner	Laura Dale & Associates, P.C.	Houston, Texas	2012
Partner	Jenkins & Kamin, LLP	Houston, Texas	2011
Founding Member and Partner	Myres, Dale & Associates P.C.		2001-2010
Consultant	The Fullenweider Firm	Houston, Texas	2000
Vice President and Director of Research	Americans for Fair Taxation		1995-2000

School	Degree	Major	Graduation
University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg France	Doctorate	Neuroscience	1982
University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg France	Masters Degree	Psychophysiology	1980
University of Texas at Austin	BA	Psychology & Anthropology	1978

State / Court	Date
Texas	06/21/2001

• State Bar of Texas, Family Law Section; College of the State Bar of Texas; International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers; Houston Bar Association; Burta Rhodes Raborn Family Law Inns of Court; Association of Women Attorneys; Association of Family and Conciliation Courts; Phi Delta Phi International Legal Fraternity; American Bar Association; French-American Chamber of Commerce;
  French Section of the Louisiana State Bar
  

• Larbie v. Larbie, Successfully petitioned for the return of a child to his habitual residence in the United Kingdom after he was wrongfully retained in Texas by his father. This case involved especially unique and complex jurisdictional issues. During divorce proceedings in Texas, the parties entered into agreed orders allowing the mother to move to the United Kingdom with the child. The father subsequently gave his consent for the child to obtain permanent residency status in the United Kingdom. Two years after the child moved to London, the father obtained a new divorce trial and requested primary custody of the child. Even though Texas no longer had jurisdiction to determine custody of the child, the Texas court awarded custody to the father. The mother, who appeared at the new trial with the child, was ordered to surrender the child . Pursuant to the Texas order, the father retained the child in Texas. After the Hague petition was filed, the father denied that he consented to making the United Kingdom the habitual residence of the child. The Western District of Texas found that the father did, in fact, give his consent, that the child was a habitual resident of the United Kingdom and that the father wrongfully retained the child, despite the Texas order. The court ordered the father to return the child to the United Kingdom. Norinder v. Fuentes, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121476 (S.D. Ill. 2010) (affirmed 657 F.3d 526 (7th Cir. 2011)) Successfully petitioned for the return of a young boy to his habitual residence in Sweden. Fuentes abducted her son from Sweden during a vacation to the United States, where she hid the child from his father for months. After a diligent search, Laura Dale finally located Fuentes and the child in Illinois. Fuentes attempted to defend the abduction by claiming that Norinder was a physically abusive alcoholic and that she never consented to making Sweden the habitual residence of the child. During several days of hearings and testimony, Laura disproved Fuentes' allegations and the court ordered that the child return to Sweden. The court also ordered Fuentes to pay $150,570 in attorney's fees. This is the largest award of attorney's fees granted by the United States courts in a Hague case. Fuentes subsequently appealed the decision to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, where Laura Dale again successfully argued for the return of the child and award of attorney's fees. The case presented an important issue of first impression for the Seventh Circuit - the ability of the lower courts to limit or deny pre-trial discovery in time-sensitive Hague cases. After oral arguments, the Court of Appeals upheld both the return of the child and award of $150,570 in attorney's fees.

• The Economic Impact of Replacing the Federal Income Tax with a Federal Consumption Tax: Leveling the International Playing Field, Currents International Law Journal, Spring 2001; Don’t be a Neanderthal: Case Management Software—The Time for Evolution is Now! 2002 So. Tex. Fam. L. Gen. Practice Ch. I; A Client for Life—How to Keep Those Referrals Coming, Houston Bar; Association, March 2004; Informal Marriage and Marriages in Other States, Marriage Dissolution Conference April 2004; Cultural Aspects of Divorce, South Texas; College of Law Continuing Legal Education, February 2007; Handling Special Property Division Issues, Half Moon CLE, January 2007; Why Shouldn’t I Handle a Family Law Case on My Own? Winstead University, November 2008; Examining the Examiner, Advanced Family Law 2009; Dealing with Ethnic and Religious Issues in Suits Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship, 2010 Parent-Child Relationships, University of Texas CLE; International Issues – Travel, Advanced Family Law Drafting Course 2010
  

Sun.	Mon.	Tue.	Wed.	Thu.	Fri.	Sat.
	9:00 am - 5:00 pm	9:00 am - 5:00 pm	9:00 am - 5:00 pm	9:00 am - 5:00 pm	9:00 am - 5:00 pm

At Other Times By Appointment

• Biography