Meet Junior Hernandez: Associate Attorney, Barton & Associates, Attorneys at Law

Texas State Bar Card Number: 24146464 | Licensed: April 22, 2025

Who is Junior Hernandez, and What Does he Bring to Your Family Law Case?

Every attorney at Barton & Associates arrived at their practice through a deliberate path, and Junior Hernandez is no exception. He is an Associate Attorney at Barton & Associates focusing exclusively on family law—the area he trained for, the community he grew up in, and the clients he has made it his professional mission to serve. A proud San Antonio native, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Legal Reasoning and Analysis from Baylor University in Waco before returning home to earn his Doctor of Jurisprudence from St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio. He was licensed by the State Bar of Texas on April 22, 2025, and joined Barton & Associates to build his family law practice in the city where he was raised. He did not relocate to an unfamiliar market or join a firm outside his community. He came home and joined one of San Antonio’s most recognized legal teams—bringing fully current legal training, sharp analytical instincts, and a genuine personal investment in the families he represents. For prospective clients who want an attorney who trained at San Antonio’s own law school, who is current on Texas family law as it exists today and who will give their case his complete focus, Junior Hernandez is a deliberate and well-supported choice.

Credentials at a Glance

• Legal Name: Mario Hernandez
• Known As: Junior Hernandez
• Title: Associate Attorney
• Firm: Barton & Associates, Attorneys at Law, PLLC
• Texas State Bar Card Number: 24146464
• Texas Bar License Date: April 22, 2025
• Bar Status: Active, Good Standing
• Primary Practice Area: Family Law

Education: Baylor University and St. Mary’s University School of Law

Junior Hernandez built an academic foundation that is both analytically rigorous and directly relevant to the practice of Texas family law. His path from a Baylor undergraduate degree to a St. Mary’s law degree reflects a student who was preparing for this career deliberately from the beginning—not someone who stumbled into law after trying something else.

• B.A., History with a Minor in Legal Reasoning and Analysis — Baylor University, Waco, Texas. Baylor University is a nationally ranked private research university and one of the most respected institutions in the state of Texas. A degree in History from Baylor develops the precise skills that effective legal advocacy demands: the ability to analyze complex, competing bodies of information, construct persuasive written arguments grounded in evidence, evaluate conflicting accounts of events, and communicate conclusions with clarity and precision. His minor in Legal Reasoning and Analysis was not incidental—it reflects a student who had already identified law as his calling and was deliberately building the intellectual toolkit that legal practice requires.
• Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) — St. Mary’s University School of Law, San Antonio, Texas, 2024. St. Mary’s University School of Law is the only ABA-accredited law school physically located in San Antonio. Its curriculum, clinical programs, and faculty are deeply integrated into the Bexar County legal community, and its students train alongside the practitioners, judges, and court staff who will later appear across from them or preside over their cases.
• Texas State Bar: Licensed April 22, 2025 — Bar Card Number 24146464, active good standing.

The significance of training at St. Mary’s Law for a San Antonio family law attorney deserves a direct explanation. A law student at St. Mary’s does not study Texas family law in the abstract—they study it in the jurisdiction where they will practice it, under faculty who are embedded in that jurisdiction, in a building a few miles from the Bexar County family courts where their future clients will appear. That local legal education produces a familiarity with the procedural culture, the judicial tendencies and the professional dynamics of San Antonio’s courts that attorneys who trained elsewhere and relocated to the city simply do not have at the outset of their careers. Junior Hernandez trained here. These are his courts.

Why a History Degree With a Legal Reasoning Minor Produces a Stronger Family Law Attorney

Prospective clients sometimes wonder what an attorney’s undergraduate major has to do with the quality of representation they will receive in a divorce or custody case. In family law, the connection is direct and significant. Family law cases are almost never decided purely on the technical application of a statute. They are decided on competing narratives—two parents telling two different stories about who they are and what serves their children’s best interests, two spouses presenting two different accounts of a marriage and its assets. The attorney who prevails is almost always the attorney who analyzes the evidence more rigorously, constructs the more coherent and persuasive account, and exposes the weaknesses in the opposing narrative most effectively. That is precisely what a rigorous undergraduate education in History—built entirely around the critical analysis of sources, the construction of evidence-based arguments, and the clear communication of conclusions—trains a person to do. A History major at an institution like Baylor is not memorizing dates. They are learning to read critically, argue persuasively and think analytically under pressure. Add a dedicated minor in Legal Reasoning and Analysis, and Junior Hernandez arrived at law school already thinking like an attorney. That matters for every client whose case he handles.

The Value of the Barton & Associates Environment for a Developing Family Attorney

One of the most important questions a prospective client should ask when considering a newer attorney is not just who the attorney is—but who they are learning from and what standards they are held to. For Junior Hernandez, those answers are among the strongest arguments for retaining him. At Barton & Associates, he works within a team that includes Managing Attorney Duane Graeff—a 26-year litigation veteran, Law Review Articles Editor, Order of Barristers honoree and federally admitted litigator—alongside Founding Attorney Gary J. Barton, a Board Certified criminal defense attorney and former Major Crimes Unit prosecutor, and Trial Attorney Desirée Flye Marshall, a 19-year family law veteran with deep Harris County trial experience and judicial appointment credentials. The mentorship environment at Barton & Associates is not a secondary benefit of joining this firm. It is one of the most powerful forces shaping the quality of Junior Hernandez’s developing practice. A newer attorney who prepares cases alongside attorneys with this depth of experience, whose work is reviewed against the standards of a firm with over 500 five-star client reviews, and who handles cases within a culture of trial readiness and aggressive advocacy develops faster and more completely than one practicing in isolation or within a less demanding environment. For clients, that means Junior Hernandez’s work reflects not just his own training but the institutional standards of the entire Barton & Associates team.

Areas of Practice

Junior Hernandez focuses exclusively on family law at Barton & Associates, representing clients in San Antonio, Bexar County, and surrounding South Texas communities.

Divorce and Separation

• Contested and uncontested divorce in Bexar County and surrounding counties
• High-conflict and fault-based divorce
• Divorce involving children, custody disputes, and parenting plan development
• Community property characterization and division under Texas law
• Separate property tracing and reimbursement claims
• Complex asset and debt division
• Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements
• Annulment proceedings

Child Custody and Conservatorship

• Contested child custody and conservatorship disputes
• Suits Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship (SAPCR)
• Emergency custody orders and temporary restraining orders in family matters
• Standard Possession Orders and expanded Standard Possession Orders
• Father’s rights and paternity actions
• Grandparents’ rights and third-party custody matters
• Joint managing conservatorship and sole managing conservatorship disputes
• Geographic restriction and relocation matters

Child Support

• Initial child support orders and calculation under Texas Family Code guidelines
• Child support enforcement and contempt proceedings
• Modification of child support based on material and substantial change in circumstances
• Medical and dental insurance allocation and reimbursement
• Failure to pay child support and enforcement actions

Visitation and Possession

• Possession order establishment, modification, and enforcement
• Holiday, vacation, and school-year possession schedule negotiations
• Right of first refusal provisions
• Geographic restriction negotiations and relocation disputes

Post-Divorce and Modification Matters

• Post-divorce modification of custody, conservatorship, and possession orders
• Spousal maintenance and contractual alimony proceedings
• Enforcement of family court orders when the opposing party is non-compliant
• Material and substantial change of circumstances petitions

Additional Family Law Matters

• Adoption proceedings
• Legal guardianship — adult and minor guardianship, temporary and emergency guardianship
• Protective orders in family law contexts
• Divorce mediation and alternative dispute resolution

Why Junior Hernandez is the Right Choice for San Antonio Families

The question prospective clients weigh—often silently—when considering a newer attorney is whether experience and quality of representation are the same thing. The honest answer is that they are not always the same, and the gap between them depends entirely on the attorney, the firm and the case. For a family law matter in San Antonio where the client wants an attorney who is fully current on the Texas Family Code as it stands today, who trained at St. Mary’s University School of Law and understands Bexar County courts from three years of local legal education, who brings the analytical discipline of a Baylor History degree and a Legal Reasoning and Analysis minor, who works daily alongside one of the most credentialed family law teams in San Antonio, and who will treat that client’s case as a priority from the first consultation to the final order— Junior Hernandez is not a compromise. He is a well-reasoned, strategically sound choice. San Antonio is his hometown. These are the courts where he trained. These are his neighbors, his community and the families he came back to serve.

How to Reach Junior Hernandez and Barton & Associates

If you are facing a divorce, custody dispute, child support matter or any other family law issue in San Antonio or Bexar County, Junior Hernandez and the full legal team at Barton & Associates are ready to help. The firm offers free consultations and is available evenings, weekends and holidays—because family law crises do not follow a nine-to-five schedule.

• San Antonio (Main Office): 115 Camaron St, San Antonio, TX 78205 | 210-500-0000
• Austin (By Appt): 316 W 12th St Suite 400, Austin, TX 78701 | 512-THE-FIRM (843-3476)
• Corpus Christi (By Appt): 5110 Wilkinson Dr Suite 210, Corpus Christi, TX 78415 | 361-800-6780
• Email: Info@BartonLawOffice.com

The firm serves clients throughout Bexar, Travis, Nueces, Comal, Guadalupe, Bandera, Medina, and Kendall Counties, and across South and Central Texas.

Main Category: Legal Team
Barton & Associates, Attorneys at Law