Texas Appellate Law Blog : Texas Appellate Lawyer & Attorney : D. Todd Smith Law Firm : Appeals, Sanctions, Summary Judgment : Austin, Texas

The Texas Law Review is working on on a new edition of the Texas Rules of Form, more affectionately known as the "Greenbook."  The call for suggestions or comments, with the relevant contact information, is available here.

Some issues are already being discussed over at the Supreme Court of Texas Blog, including citations to court opinions outside of paid research services (Westlaw or LEXIS) and the future of Texas's subsequent-history system.

Adding to that discussion, TLR might consider creating a new subsequent-history designation for cases the Texas Supreme Court has acted on in some way, but has not yet decided.  For example, if the Court has requested full briefing, the designation might be "pet. filed, briefing requested" or something similar.  Or, after the petition has been on file some minimum period, the designation might be changed to "pet. pending."  (Hat tip to Dylan Drummond for the latter idea.)

When a matter has been on file for some time, the designation "pet. filed" doesn't provide much useful information.  These suggestions would help address that shortcoming.  But some would question the wisdom of adding more designations to a system that is already difficult to understand without considerable study and practice.

The problem I see with basing such designations on anything other than the passage of time is how to obtain the additional information when citing the case.  If research services don't pick it up, viewing the Supreme Court's online docket might be the most expedient way, and even that would be fairly tedious.

The Greenbook's subsequent history designations are confusing to many lawyers.  If you're interested in providing feedback based on your own experiences, now is the time.

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As discussed this morning at Don Cruse's Supreme Court of Texas Blog and picked up by How Appealing, Justice Don Willett wrote an interesting op-ed that appeared recently in the online version of the Austin American-Statesman.  (Note to the Statesman's editorial staff:  When you receive a submission from a sitting Texas Supreme Court justice, it's probably a good idea to publish it in the print edition as well.)

In honor of Constitution Day, Justice Willett discussed the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Heller decision (the D.C. gun-ban, Second Amendment case) and the parties' and Court's reliance on a new, fully indexed online library of constitutional source materials created by ConSource.  Justice Willett, who sits on ConSource's national advisory board, describes it as "a nonprofit with this singular goal:  granting direct access to our Founders' words."

In his blog post, Don Cruse mentioned the Debates in the Texas Constitutional Convention of 1875 as something of a state counterpart.  As Don noted, though, "[i]t’s not as lovingly annotated as its federal equivalents, but it does shed at least a little light on some of the more mysterious parts of our constitution."

These are undoubtedly useful resources.  But honestly, I don't often analyze  federal or state constitutional provisions in my practice.  For most folks like me, better documentation and dissemination of state statutory legislative history would be more useful.  When someone creates a nonprofit entity dedicated to that purpose, just tell me where to send a check.

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Authoritative enough for the Fifth Circuit, apparently.  Last week, in Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Commissioner (note 1), a circuit panel cited the online encyclopedia for its definition of the accounting term "accrue."  (Hat tip to Appellate Law &Practice.)

Are internet-savvy clerks are showing their influence?  Should the Fifth Circuit rely on a wiki of uncertain authorship to define a term of art?

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