Recent Articles

Hedges and Hawthorne to Speak on New TAMES System

D. Todd Smith
March 22, 2012 12:50

On March 29, 2012, Fourteenth Court of Appeals Chief Justice Adele Hedges and Texas Supreme Court Clerk Blake Hawthorne will speak to the Austin Bar Civil Appellate Law Section on "The Texas Appeals Management and E-filing System: Making Our Appellate Courts More Efficient and...

An Evening with the Texas Supreme Court v.3.0

D. Todd Smith
March 20, 2012 13:23

In what has become a biennial event, the Appellate Sections of the State Bar of Texas and the Austin Bar Association are sponsoring a program entitled “An Evening with the Texas Supreme Court” on Thursday, April 26, 2012, from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the InterContinental Stephen F. Austin...

Follow-Up on Villarreal Argument

D. Todd Smith
February 20, 2012 16:20

To follow up on my last post, Texas Lawyer has run a front-page story on the Villarreal case.  Access the article here or here.

SLG's Brandy Wingate to Argue at Texas Supreme Court

D. Todd Smith
February 09, 2012 04:12

After just over a year with my firm, Brandy Wingate has landed an oral argument at the Texas Supreme Court. The argument will take place at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow at the John B. Connally Center at the University of Texas School of Law here in Austin. The case is Rio Grande Regional Hospital Inc. and...

Solo/Small Firm Section CLE Set for 2/23

D. Todd Smith
February 01, 2012 14:16

As immediate past chair of the Austin Bar Association Solo/Small Firm Section, my main responsibility is to organize and run a half-day CLE program the Section puts on each year.  We have put together what I think will be an outstanding program that will educate attendees on a number of...

Austin Appellate Section to Host Chief Justices on January 19

D. Todd Smith
January 13, 2012 13:25

The Austin Bar Association's Civil Appellate Law Section will kick off the new year with a special program featuring chief justices from several of the fourteen intermediate state courts of appeals.  The luncheon meeting, which will take place at noon on January 19, 2012 at Green Pastures,...

Happy 2012!

D. Todd Smith
January 01, 2012 20:23

Ringing in the new year takes us to another milestone—the fifth anniversary of this blog's launch.  Year-end has been a natural time to re-evaluate, re-assess, and plan for the next twelve months. Last January 1, I announced that Brandy Wingate had joined my firm, @Smith Law Group, and...

SCOTX to Hold Hearing on Uniform E-Filing System

D. Todd Smith
December 08, 2011 14:34

This afternoon at 2:00, the Texas Supreme Court will hold a public hearing to explore the feasibility of a statewide uniform system for electronic court filings.  The hearing will take place in the Supreme Court Courtroom and will be webcast live here. The Court is considering whether Texas...

Must Attorney Fees Be Superseded on Appeal?

D. Todd Smith
November 07, 2011 15:16

A split is developing among the intermediate Texas appellate courts on an issue important to civil trial lawyers and their clients:  whether attorney fees must be included in the amount of security a judgment debtor must post to prevent execution on the judgment pending appeal. Under former...

What's New in Standards of Review

D. Todd Smith
September 19, 2011 13:00

Below are the slides from my talk on standards of review at the 25th Annual Advanced Civil Appellate Practice Course.  This is an important but incredibly dense topic, and I only had 30 minutes to present it.  I therefore focused on two things:  (1) the abuse-of-discretion standard,...