Dallas, TX

Posting to North Texas readers a court has already spoken to

A family law firm in North Texas publishes to people who may already be under a court's instruction about their own behavior. In many courts here an order attaches when a case is filed, and part of what it governs is how the parties treat each other while it is open, in writing as much as anywhere else. So a reader in Dallas County or Collin County is not on neutral ground when they open your video. Add the institutions that hold most of this metro's attention, a suburban office plan that points a wall of glass west, and a commute that is the only private hour most parents get, and the local decisions are mostly about restraint.

The court got to your reader before you did

A parent reading your post may already be under an order about how they behave while a case is open, which changes what you can safely publish about their own conduct.

Across much of North Texas an order attaches when a family case is filed and governs the parties until it ends. What it says about how they may treat each other, and about what a child should not be exposed to, is the thing your audience is actually living inside.

Those orders are not identical. Dallas County, Collin County, Denton County and Tarrant County each run their own version and the wording gets revised, so a confident post telling people what they may put online is wrong somewhere inside your own service area before you finish writing it.

Write about the existence of the constraint instead of its contents. Say that an order may already apply, that it is worth reading before typing anything, and that a message sent in anger tends to reappear in a hearing months later. All of it is true across the Metroplex and none of it requires you to quote a court.

The same caution runs back at the firm. Anything published while a matter is live can be read by the other side as commentary on it, and being the account that looks like it is discussing an open case is a bad place to be in front of a judge who has already told everybody to behave.

A congregation's communications office answers in writing

The large churches here are institutions with media policies, and their written answer outranks any enthusiasm you find inside the building.

The big congregations across Plano, Southlake, Irving and Frisco run groups and events that touch a great many households in this metro. They also run communications offices with settled positions on naming businesses, on sponsorship and on cameras.

Ask that office rather than the person who invited you. A volunteer or a group leader may be glad to have you there and be in no position to authorize a camera on campus, a logo on a program or the use of a photograph afterward.

Then take the answer you are given. Working around a no, by recording in a parking lot or publishing a picture of a room full of people, ends that relationship and the ones behind it, because institutions of that size talk to each other.

Assume the same about the private schools and the corporate campuses that fill Collin County and Denton County. Anywhere with a communications office has a written answer about being filmed on its property, and getting it before you plan anything costs one email.

West-facing storefront glass is the enemy of an afternoon recording

The newer offices in this market share one floor plan, and it aims a wall of glass at the brightest, hottest half of the sky.

A suite in a new retail strip in Frisco, Prosper or McKinney usually has full-height storefront glass along one side and a parking lot past it. When the sun swings around, the room goes from usable to hopeless inside an hour, and no camera setting rescues a window brighter than the person sitting in front of it.

Morning is the honest answer. The same room before noon, with the speaker facing the glass rather than backed against it, gives you soft even light for nothing at all.

If the diary only offers afternoons, kill the window. A blind, a curtain and one lamp beat any heroic attempt to balance North Texas sun, and the reflection of a parking lot full of cars behind your head is a problem of its own.

Heat is why moving outdoors does not help. From late spring into September there is no comfortable outdoor hour in the middle of a working day here, and it shows on camera as discomfort rather than as weather.

The drive home is the only private hour a Prosper parent gets

In a metro built around long solo commutes, the car is where somebody can listen to you without anybody else in the household hearing it.

A parent living in Prosper or Frisco and working in Dallas or Irving spends a real part of the day alone in a car. At home the two adults are in the same rooms, often on the same accounts, and a video about divorce is not something anybody plays out loud in a kitchen.

So make the audio carry the point on its own. Something that still makes sense with the phone face down in a cup holder reaches a person at the moment they are actually free to listen to it.

Keep each piece short enough to finish before the exit. An answer that lands between the Dallas North Tollway and a driveway gets heard to the end, and one that needs twenty minutes and full attention gets abandoned at the first merge.

The rest of it, how often to publish, who should be on camera, what to do about a comment and what deserves money behind it, is written once on our family law social media page at /industries/family-law/social-media, and everything above is what North Texas adds to it.

Questions we actually get

Can we publish a guide to what our clients should and should not post online?: Publish the warning, not the rules. In much of North Texas an order attaches when a case is filed, and the versions used in Dallas County, Collin County, Denton County and Tarrant County are not identical and get revised. Tell readers that an order may already govern them, that they should read the one in their own case, and that anything written in anger tends to turn up in a hearing. Have your own counsel check the wording before it goes out.
A church group invited one of our attorneys to speak. Can we film it?: Ask the congregation's communications office in writing first, and plan on a no. Large churches here have settled positions on cameras, sponsorship and whether a business may be named at all, and the person who invited you is usually not the person who decides. Recording in the parking lot instead is the fastest way to lose the invitation and the ones that would have followed it.
Our conference room is unusable after lunch. Do we need a studio?: No, you need a morning or a curtain. A suite with storefront glass facing west across a parking lot in Frisco or McKinney turns hard and hot in the afternoon, and no setting on the camera fixes a window brighter than the speaker. Record before noon with the speaker facing the glass, or close it off entirely and light the room yourself.
Everything we make is video. Is that the right format for this market?: Video is fine, but write it so the sound alone carries it. A parent commuting between Prosper and Dallas is listening rather than watching, and the car is often the only place in their day where nobody else in the household can hear it. Keep each answer short enough to finish before an exit and put the point at the start rather than saving it.
Can our attorneys record something from the car between courthouses?: Yes, parked, with the engine off and the windows up. Days here get eaten by driving between Dallas County, Collin County and Tarrant County, and a recording made in the ten minutes before a hearing is worth more than one that never happens. Say nothing about the matter you are there for, and check what is visible through the windows before you start.

What is different here

Florida Bar advertising rules govern what a firm may claim, how past results may be described and what has to be reviewed before publication. The practical local fact is that family matters are heard in a judicial circuit, and circuits differ in their standing orders, parenting-course requirements and mediation practice, so procedure genuinely varies between neighboring counties.

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Written by KC Thompson, Morgul Marketing.

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