Texas Legal Intel

The State Bar of Texas Blog is a TX-focused publication for lawyers and attorneys with coverage of rule of law, justice issues, law-related education, MCLE, CLE, law licenses, the Supreme Court of Texas, the Texas Bar Journal, and bar exams.

The Texas Supreme Court has ended Texas’s reliance on the American Bar Association in this law-school accreditation matter.

Enforceability of employee non-competes varies dramatically by state and is trending toward narrower enforcement nationally. Common defects include geographic scope broader than the employer's actual market, duration longer than necessary to protect a legitimate interest, and lack of consideration beyond continued employment.

Client trust funds and the firm's operating funds must never commingle, even temporarily, even with the intent to "fix it later." Bar audits look for two things first: (1) any check or transfer that touches both accounts, (2) negative balances on any specific client's ledger. Both are presumptive misappropriation regardless of intent.

A consistently followed retention policy provides a defense against spoliation claims when documents are destroyed in the ordinary course before litigation was anticipated. Without a policy, every routine deletion looks like targeted destruction in hindsight.