Welcome to your daily briefing on legal developments in Texas. Today we're covering 7 key stories including updates on texas legal headlines, texas legal updates, background & context. Let's dive in.
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The Texas Secretary of State provides public information reports to the Comptroller’s Office for querying taxable Texas entities by business name.
Legal professionals in TX can access critical business entity data to support compliance and due diligence efforts.
The State Bar of Texas Blog provides essential news and information covering topics from law licenses and bar exams to the Supreme Court of Texas.
This resource keeps Texas legal professionals informed on critical developments in justice, continuing education, and regulatory compliance specific to the state.
The Texas Supreme Court has decided to stop relying on the American Bar Association for law school accreditation within the state.
This decision impacts Texas legal professionals by potentially altering the standards and oversight of law education within the state.
Reach professionals in this market
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit maintains its official website as the primary portal for federal appellate procedures, opinions, and court information.
Texas falls within the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction, making this the essential federal appellate court for TX litigators handling appeals from the state's district courts.
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A preservation (litigation hold) letter is appropriate as soon as litigation is reasonably anticipated, not just after a complaint is filed. The letter should identify the matter, the document categories at issue, and the recipient's preservation duty. Failure to send one is the leading evidence of spoliation in subsequent motion practice.
Sanctions for spoliation can include adverse-inference instructions, monetary fines, and in severe cases default judgment. The cost of issuing a hold letter is one paralegal hour.
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.
Adverse-inference instructions arising from spoliation routinely turn winnable cases into losses. A documented policy, consistently applied, is the cleanest defense available.
Most non-compliance findings stem from three avoidable mistakes: claiming credit for the wrong reporting period, missing the ethics-credit minimum, and failing to retain proof of attendance for the audit lookback window (typically 5 years). State bar audits are random but increasing in frequency.
A CLE non-compliance finding is a public record in many states and triggers an administrative suspension that requires reinstatement application. Reinstatement is slower than initial admission in some jurisdictions.
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