From Hyde Park to MacDill.
South Tampa is a district of the city, not a town of its own, and a divorce here moves through Tampa's courts like any other Tampa case. We have practiced family law in those courts, and only family law, since 1992.
Family-law focused since 1992. Every consultation is confidential.
South Tampa is not a separate city. It is the district of Tampa that fills the Interbay Peninsula, from the historic streets of Hyde Park at its northern end to MacDill Air Force Base at its southern tip, with Old Tampa Bay on one side and Hillsborough Bay on the other. That fact carries legal weight: when a marriage ends here, the case is a Tampa case, filed and heard downtown through the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit.
Much of the district was built out generations ago. Beach Park was platted in 1924 during the Florida land boom, and its first wave of Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial homes still stands alongside newer construction. Palma Ceia took shape through early-1900s through 1920s land-boom development, its bungalows set on original brick streets. Fronting the bay, Bayshore Beautiful holds what the City of Tampa itself describes as some of the city's most stately and elegant homes. In neighborhoods like these, the house is rarely just a line item. A home held for years is often the center of the marital estate, and dividing it fairly under Florida's equitable distribution rules, alongside retirement accounts, a business, or other significant assets, is where a South Tampa divorce demands the most care. For estates that run deeper, our high-net-worth divorce work covers the valuation and division questions that come with them.
Children's lives here run the length of the peninsula: school in one neighborhood, practice in another, weekend mornings on Bayshore Boulevard, whose sidewalk runs 4.5 miles along Hillsborough Bay from Platt Street to Gandy Boulevard, one of the longest continuous sidewalks in the world. From the poet streets of Sunset Park, where Tennyson and Keats and Longfellow face Old Tampa Bay, through Virginia Park in the center of the district, to Ballast Point and its waterfront park at the southeast corner, a workable parenting plan has to fit that daily geography, not fight it. We build time-sharing schedules around how your family actually moves through the week.
And at the southern end of the peninsula sits MacDill Air Force Base, headquarters of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command. We serve military families near MacDill, and military divorce raises issues a civilian case never touches: protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the division of military pensions, and residency and domicile rules that decide where a filing belongs. For eligible filings, venue is the same Thirteenth Judicial Circuit that hears every other Hillsborough County family case.
Because South Tampa is part of the City of Tampa, its family-law matters are heard through the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit at the county's main courthouse downtown. Knowing the venue before you file means you arrive prepared instead of unsettled.
800 E. Twiggs Street, Tampa 33602
The county's main judicial center, downtown on Twiggs Street, is home to the circuit's Family Law Division. Dissolution, time-sharing, and support matters for families across the Interbay Peninsula are decided here, and if yours is set for this courthouse, nothing about the day will feel unfamiliar when it comes.
Edgecomb Courthouse, 1st Floor, Room 101
The Clerk's Family Law division, on the first floor of the Edgecomb Courthouse, handles intake for divorce, paternity, support, and name-change matters and keeps the family-court records for Hillsborough County. We handle the filing details so the paperwork is one less worry for you.
Which division hears your matter depends on your circumstances, and we confirm that at your consultation. Time spent in a courthouse buys preparation and steadiness, never influence and never a promised result.
You may be raising young children a block off Bayshore, or looking ahead to the years after they have gone. Tell us where you stand, and the counsel meets you there.
Divorce with young children: time-sharing, two homes, and starting the next chapter on solid footing.
Explore →Peak-career assets, teenagers, and a season where everything runs at once.
Explore →Long marriages, retirement accounts, and the questions that come with the next chapter.
Explore →South Tampa's neighborhoods read like chapters of one long story. Hyde Park anchors the north, a local historic district of roughly 600 acres whose bungalows and revival-style homes date to a period of significance from 1886 to 1933. South of it, Palma Ceia and Virginia Park fill the middle of the peninsula, Sunset Park faces Old Tampa Bay on its poet-named streets, Bayshore Beautiful fronts Hillsborough Bay, and Ballast Point holds the southeast corner, down toward the base.
We represent families from all of them, in the same downtown courtrooms, with the same senior attention.
The district is one part of a much larger practice. Our Tampa page covers the firm's home city as a whole, and our Hillsborough County page maps the full reach of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, from Plant City to the bay.
Serving Tampa Bay →Source: Google Business Profile, verified June 2026
Ratings reflect reviews of the firm as a whole, across our full Tampa Bay practice.
Read our Google reviewsSouth Tampa is a district of the City of Tampa, not a separate city, so a divorce or custody matter here is filed and heard the same way as any other Tampa case: through the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, which covers all of Hillsborough County and has a dedicated Family Law Division. Hearings take place at the George E. Edgecomb Courthouse at 800 E. Twiggs Street in downtown Tampa, and petitions and records pass through the Clerk's Family Law division on the courthouse's first floor. Which division hears your matter depends on your circumstances, and we walk through exactly what that means for you when we meet.
Yes. MacDill sits at the southern tip of the Interbay Peninsula, and we serve military families in the neighborhoods around it. Military divorce raises questions a civilian case never touches, including protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and the division of military pensions, and residency and domicile rules decide where a service member can file in the first place. For eligible filings, the venue is the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, the same court that hears every other Hillsborough County family law case. Bring us your situation and we will walk through what applies to you.
No, and we will be straightforward about it: our office is in north Tampa, on Busch Lake Boulevard, not in South Tampa. What matters far more is that your attorney regularly practices family law in the courthouse where your case will actually be heard, and for South Tampa that courthouse is downtown at 800 E. Twiggs Street. Much of the work between hearings moves by phone, email, and video anyway, and when meeting in person makes sense, we set that time around your schedule, not ours.
In many South Tampa divorces the home is the question the rest of the case bends around. Florida divides marital property under equitable distribution, and a house held for years in an established neighborhood such as Palma Ceia or Beach Park tends to carry both financial weight and a family's history. Whether one spouse keeps the home, whether it is sold, and how the rest of the marital estate balances against it are decisions with long consequences, and they deserve careful counsel rather than a quick answer. This is general information, not legal advice about your specific situation.
A district of Tampa deserves counsel that knows Tampa's courts.
We will not pretend to be your neighbor. Our office sits in north Tampa, on Busch Lake Boulevard, and South Tampa families reach us by a drive, a call, or a video window. What we offer instead is the thing a hard season actually requires: attorneys who have worked family law in Hillsborough's downtown courthouse for decades and nothing else.
Theodore J. Rechel has been licensed since 1990 and founded the firm in January 1992; it has practiced family law exclusively ever since. He and Jacob Goss bring that focus to every matter, whether it turns on a Palma Ceia home, a parenting schedule split across the peninsula, or a military pension earned at MacDill.
Rechel & Associates is a multi-generational firm for clients at every stage of life. For South Tampa, that means counsel measured by its years in your courthouse, not by its distance from your door.
Reach out for a confidential consultation. We will talk through where things stand, what the road ahead may hold, and what the first step looks like from where you stand on the peninsula.
Every consultation is confidential.
