The courthouse is in your neighborhood.
Hillsborough County's family-law divisions sit at the Edgecomb Courthouse on Twiggs Street, inside downtown itself. If you live in the towers along the river, your case is decided blocks from home, and we have practiced family law in this circuit, exclusively, since 1992.
Family-law focused since 1992. Every consultation is confidential.
Downtown Tampa is not a suburb with a courthouse somewhere over the horizon. It is the seat of city and county government, and the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit's family-law divisions sit at the George E. Edgecomb Courthouse on Twiggs Street, inside the district itself. People in every other community we serve drive downtown for their hearings. If you live here, in the core between the Hillsborough River and the Channel District, you already walk past the building where your case would be heard.
Downtown living is its own thing, and it shapes a divorce in specific ways. Downtown Tampa's housing is predominantly high-rise condos and apartments, with wave after wave of new towers built since the mid-2000s in the Channel District, on former port land where warehouses stood into the 1970s, and more recently in Water Street. Harbour Island, just south of the core, built out from 1985 on the old Seddon Island rail yard, is mostly multi-family as well, from two-story townhomes to high-rises. A recently built condo bought during the marriage raises different equitable-distribution questions than a fifty-year-old house, starting with when it was purchased, how it is titled, and what paid for it.
And downtown life runs on a schedule. If your days are spent in the office towers, your evenings along the Riverwalk between Sparkman Wharf and Armature Works or at a game at Benchmark International Arena, you do not have slack in the week for a legal process that ignores your calendar. We keep the process discreet, we work around real workdays, and much of a case moves without you leaving your desk. Our office is on Busch Lake Boulevard in Tampa, a straightforward drive up from the core, and we meet in person when it matters.
Downtown needs no directions to the courthouse. The Thirteenth Judicial Circuit's family-law divisions sit on Twiggs Street, in the district's own core, a short walk from the Marion Transit Center.
800 E. Twiggs Street, Tampa 33602
Dedicated in 2004 and named for Hillsborough's first African-American county judge, the Edgecomb Courthouse is the seat of the Thirteenth Circuit's civil, family, and probate divisions, and it is a downtown landmark in its own right. Most Hillsborough family-law cases are heard here. For downtown residents that means the hearing is in your own neighborhood, not across the county.
Edgecomb Courthouse, 1st Floor, Room 101
Filings for dissolution, custody, support, paternity, and alimony pass through the Clerk's Family Law department on the courthouse's first floor. We handle the filing details so the paperwork is one less worry, and if you ever need the Clerk yourself, the counter is blocks from home.
Which division and judge hear your matter depends on your circumstances, and we confirm that at your consultation. Familiarity with a courthouse buys preparation and steadiness, never influence and never a promised result.
You may be raising a young family in a Channel District tower, or untangling a long marriage's holdings from Harbour Island. Tell us where you stand, and the counsel meets you there.
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Explore →The district runs from the Hillsborough River on the west through the Channel District, with Harbour Island just south of the core and Tampa Heights across the interstate to the north, stitched together by the 2.6 miles of the Riverwalk. Wherever your building stands along that line, the same courthouse and the same firm serve you.
If your life sits in the neighboring district of Hyde Park, on the firm's Tampa home turf, or elsewhere in Hillsborough County, those pages open onto the wider practice.
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Read our Google reviewsIn your own neighborhood. Family-law matters in Hillsborough County are heard in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, whose family-law divisions sit at the George E. Edgecomb Courthouse at 800 E. Twiggs Street, in downtown's own core and a short walk from the Marion Transit Center. Most Hillsborough family cases are heard there, though some east-county matters can be handled at Plant City. Petitions and records pass through the Clerk's Family Law department on the courthouse's first floor. Which division and judge you draw depends on your circumstances, and we walk you through what that means before your first hearing.
As general information only: Florida divides a divorcing couple's property through equitable distribution, which starts by sorting what is marital from what is not. A downtown condo raises its own version of that question. Much of the housing here is recent construction, in the Channel District from 2007 onward and in Water Street more recently still, so the purchase, the deposit, and any change in value often sit entirely inside the marriage years. How the unit is titled, when it was bought, and what paid for it all matter. Nothing here is advice about your situation. These are ordinary questions with established answers, and a consultation is the place to work through how they apply to you.
Often, yes, and we will be straight with you when a particular time cannot be done. Many of our downtown clients work full days in the towers along the river and cannot disappear for two hours in the middle of one. We work around real schedules where we reasonably can, and much of a case moves by phone, email, and filings that never require you to leave your desk. Tell us what your week actually looks like, and we will build the meetings around it rather than the other way around.
We have worked in this circuit's family courtrooms since 1992.
The firm has practiced family law, and only family law, in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit since January 1992. The circuit's family-law divisions sit today at the Edgecomb Courthouse on Twiggs Street, in downtown's own core, so for the people who live here, more than three decades of that experience points at the courthouse down the block.
Theodore J. Rechel has been licensed since 1990, and he and attorney Jacob Goss handle these matters the same way for a client in a Water Street tower as for one anywhere else in the county: plainly, carefully, and without theater. Downtown clients tend to value discretion, and a divorce handled here does not need to become anyone else's business.
Familiarity is not influence, and we promise no outcome to anyone. What long practice in one circuit does buy is preparation: you will know where you are going, what the day will look like, and what is expected of you before any of it happens.
Reach out for a confidential consultation. We will talk through where things stand, what the road ahead may hold, and how close the courtroom that decides it actually is.
Every consultation is confidential.
