Meeting of the Supreme Court

30630 1 2 3 4 5 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 6 MEETING OF THE SUPREME COURT ADVISORY COMMITTEE 7 SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 8 (FRIDAY SESSION) 9 10 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Taken before D'Lois L. Jones, Certified 20 Shorthand Reporter in and for the State of Texas, reported 21 by machine shorthand method, on the 13th day of September, 22 2019, between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 4:58 P.M., at the 23 Sheraton Austin at the Capital, Creekside Conference Room, 24 701 East 11th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. 25 D'Lois Jones, CSR 30631 1 INDEX OF VOTES 2 Votes taken by the Supreme Court Advisory Committee during 3 this session are reflected on the following pages: 4 Vote on Page 5 Citation by Publication 30,790 6 TRCP 244 30,827 7 Ex Parte Communications in Problem-solving Courts 30,894 8 Ex Parte Communications in Problem-solving Courts 30,909 9 10 11 12 Documents referenced in this session 13 19-26 Citation by Publication Report, 9-12-19 14 19-27 Rule-116 Service of Citation by Publication 15 Redline v1 16 19-28 February 11, 2019 Report, TRCP 244 17 19-29 Ex Parte Communication in Problem-Solving Courts, 9-9-19 18 19-30 Judge Reyes' Comments - Ex Parte Communication 19 in Specialty Courts 20 21 22 23 24 25 D'Lois Jones, CSR 30632 1 *-*-*-*-* 2 CHAIRMAN BABCOCK: Welcome, everybody, to 3 our new, hopefully temporary, headquarters here. I don't 4 know if I can even see Levi down there. 5 HONORABLE LEVI BENTON: Sure you can. 6 CHAIRMAN BABCOCK: But so when you're down 7 in that quadrant of the room, speak up so Dee Dee and the 8 rest of us down here can hear you. 9 HONORABLE TRACY CHRISTOPHER: Okay, but you 10 need to speak up, too. 11 HONORABLE LEVI BENTON: Exactly. 12 HONORABLE TRACY CHRISTOPHER: Please. 13 CHAIRMAN BABCOCK: I will speak up as best I 14 can. 15 HONORABLE LEVI BENTON: As a matter of fact, 16 will you please stand when you speak? 17 CHAIRMAN BABCOCK: No, you-all stand when I 18 speak. All right. We've got two new members and one 19 member who's moved from her old 'hood up to the front 20 table. Nancy Rister from Georgetown, Texas, who is the 21 Williamson County Clerk, who is down there to my right; 22 and Sharena Gilliland, who is from Weatherford and the 23 District Clerk of Parker County. So welcome, and thank 24 you for joining us. Let us know at the end of the session 25 your reaction to all of this. And, of course, at the head D'Lois Jones, CSR 30633 1 table we have Justice Bland, and the Chief will explain 2 those circumstances to those few who don't know it, and 3 the only other thing I have to say is that I heard one of 4 the best four and a half minute speeches I've ever heard 5 last Friday, and it was delivered surprisingly by none 6 other than our own Skip Watson -- 7 MR. WATSON: Surprisingly. 8 CHAIRMAN BABCOCK: -- who was accepting an 9 award, and the Chief and I are making arrangements to get 10 a copy of it, and at our next meeting we're going to play 11 it so people can hear it. 12 MR. WATSON: Oh, great. I'll be absent. 13 CHAIRMAN BABCOCK: Well, maybe in body, but 14 not in terms of your words of wisdom. Really terrific, 15 terrific speech. So with that said, Chief. 16 CHIEF JUSTICE HECHT: Well, the Court was at 17 less than full strength on Wednesday for the second time 18 this year, but it only lasted about five minutes while the 19 Governor told us what a good appointment he had made in 20 Jane Bland. So Judge Brown is on his way to Galveston, 21 and he and Susannah found a home down there, and they're 22 anxious to get started, and they promise to come back 23 whenever the Court has occasions for them to do it. So we 24 welcome Jane to the Court, and we wish Judge Brown well. 25 We have made some rule changes that were D'Lois Jones, CSR 30634 1 mandated by the Legislature to be done by September the 2 1st. We added a comment to the Code of Judicial Conduct, 3 noting that it can't be read to prohibit a joint campaign 4 activity conducted by two or more judicial candidates. 5 That was a statute passed this last session. So that was 6 done. We talked about that I think last time. The Rule 7 of Civil Procedure 91a was amended to make the award of 8 costs of attorney fees discretionary instead of mandatory 9 for cases that are commenced after September 1st. Another 10 statute. 11 Senate Bill 891 required that better notice 12 be given to court reporters regarding the filing of 13 appeals. So we changed TRAP 25.1 to require the appellant 14 to deliver a copy of the notice of appeal to court 15 reporters responsible for preparing the record and changed 16 32.1 to require appellants to include the contact 17 information of court reporters in their docketing 18 statement and then changed 13.5 to require substitute 19 court reporters, of whom there are often a number, to file 20 contact information with the Court. And then I think the 21 Office of Court Administration, David Slayton, who is here 22 today, may add the court reporter contact information into 23 the e-filing system so that it will be automatically 24 available to everybody whenever they need to see it. 25 And then the last statutorily required D'Lois Jones, CSR 30635 1 change we made was to exempt from MDL transfer DTPA cases 2 and cases in -- brought under the Medicaid Fraud 3 Prevention Act. This was Senate Bill 827, supported by 4 the attorney general, and the Legislature directed us to 5 make that change, and we made it. 6 Some changes that we have made that were not 7 required by the Legislature: One is to approve a 8 three-year temporary license for attorney spouses of 9 active duty military who are stationed in Texas. This is 10 a national trend. A lot of other states are doing it. 11 About a third -- about two-thirds of the states have done 12 it already. And this last session the Legislature passed 13 the Senate Bill 1200, which provides for military spouse 14 temporary licensing in other occupations. We didn't think 15 the statute covered the legal profession, but we thought 16 it was a good idea anyway, and we talked about it actually 17 for some time, and so we made that change, and we will 18 start issuing temporary licenses on December the 1st when 19 that change becomes effective. 20 We finalized the rules governing the Uniform 21 Bar Exam. The first time it will be given is in February 22 of '21, and there hasn't been much discussion of that. We 23 did ask the bar for comment when we were considering it 24 and got virtually none. It's very popular with most of 25 the deans and law students, because they want to be able D'Lois Jones, CSR 30636 1 to transfer their bar grade if they can. Some law 2 students I think are even waiting, excuse me, to start law 3 school so that they can take the UBE, or they may go ahead 4 and start and then wait to take the bar exam until they 5 can take it, just so they can transfer. There will be 6 a -- there will be the UBE and then there will be a course 7 that we will require. We haven't worked it out yet, a 8 course and a test on Texas law, peculiarities in Texas law 9 that would not be on the uniform bar exam. So we're 10 working through all of that, finalizing it, but we ordered 11 the final rules this last several weeks. 12 And then we are told that practice tests, 13 the court reporters are required to take two practice 14 tests before they can sit for the licensing exam, and the 15 report after some years of doing that is that those tests 16 are not predictive of ability to pass the exam and are 17 probably a waste of time and money, and there seemed to be 18 uniformity about that. So we changed the Judicial Branch 19 adjunct rules to eliminate the requirements that those 20 tests be taken. So those were our rules changes since we 21 last met. 22 I mention this to you, that on October 25th, 23 please mark this down, October 25th. That's a Friday or 24 Saturday? 25 MS. DAUMERIE: Friday. D'Lois Jones, CSR 30637 1 CHIEF JUSTICE HECHT: The Texas Access to 2 Justice Foundation will have its 35th anniversary dinner 3 here in Austin, and John Grisham is their keynote speaker, 4 and he virtually volunteered to do that. He is a member 5 of the Leaders Council for the Legal Services -- National 6 Legal Services Corporation. So he really has a heartfelt 7 interest in access to justice and Legal Aid, and he's 8 given a lot of time and energy to that mission, and so 9 he'll be the keynote speaker.

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