How the Supreme Court of Texas Operates Today
UT Conference on State and Federal Appeals ()Lawyers who practice in the Texas Supreme Court often rely on the rhythms of its calendar to advise their clients:
Mastering the Court’s internal operating procedures will allow you to use the Court’s calendar to predict when to expect the Court to take action in your case, or other cases that you are watching. Using what you know about the Court’s calendar and the internal operating procedures can also help provide insight into whether the Court is interested in your case.
Blake Hawthorne and I discussed the new version of the Court’s internal operating procedures, issued the week of this talk, which reflect some of the changes the Court has internally adopted to meet its new self-imposed opinion deadline.
I also presented some of my own observations about how the Court’s new internal schedule looks to advocates from the outside, including what guidance lawyers might offer clients about how to read the tea leaves of the Court’s silence.
(Those slides are based on my own data and of course reflect my observations, not an official view of the Court.)
