Each guide covers one procedure. They can be read in any order and none of them assumes you have read the others.
All guides
Arranged by when you are likely to need them rather than alphabetically, because nobody reads a courthouse guide for fun.
Before the hearing
Reading your own docket
Where to find the list of everything that has happened in your case, which entries should worry you, and why the one-line summary is not the document.
Getting a document filed
What Rule 21 requires of every filing, the e-filing format rules, and the provision stating that a clerk may not refuse a non-conforming document.
How to e-file
The six rules that decide whether an electronic filing works — including redacting sensitive data, which in a custody case means your children’s names.
Asking for more time
The three routes Rule 251 allows, why standing up and asking is not one of them, and how to write an affidavit of facts rather than argument.
Exhibits and evidence
Mark it, show it, authenticate it, offer it. The four steps that move a document from your bag into the record.
On the day
Talking to the judge
Forms of address, when to stand, what costs you credibility, and the two questions to ask before you leave the courtroom.
The court reporter and the record
A Texas court reporter takes down the proceeding on request. If nobody asks, there may be nothing to appeal from.
Questioning a witness
Direct and cross are opposite jobs with opposite rules. Question shapes that survive an objection, and where to stop.
When the other side has a lawyer
What opposing counsel may and may not do, the agreed order you should never sign in a hallway, and the discovery request that can decide a case by itself.
What is not here yet
This is a new site and the list above is the first tranche, not the finished set. Guides being written next: what actually happens at a first hearing, minute by minute; how to prepare an exhibit binder; how to read an order after it is signed; and what a mediation session is like from the inside.
If there is a procedure that tripped you up and it is not covered, that is exactly what we want to hear about. It is more useful than a suggestion in the abstract, because you know where the gap actually is.
Not finding what you need because your question is about the law rather than the courtroom? SAFE SAPCR Texas covers Texas SAPCR substance — what the suit is, service of process, default judgments, bills of review, and the reform legislation. We do not duplicate it on purpose.