In the News

A New York lawyer is facing possible sanctions after filing a flawed brief with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI generated language model. Legal experts are raising eyebrows over the ethics behind the use of this emerging technology in the courtroom.

After decades of investment and focus on smart policies to strengthen our state’s economy, Texas took the next step and became the 31st state to create a specialty business court with this session’s passage of House Bill 19.

SCOTUS’ decision to send these public nuisance cases back to state courts puts activist judges across the country in the driver’s seat, deciding major precedent-setting cases related to national energy policy. Just one nuclear judgment from one of these cases can derail a multinational energy producer, threatening our nation’s energy security and thousands of jobs in Texas and beyond.

Texas’ 14th Court of Appeals upheld a verdict of over $100 million imposed on Werner Enterprises and an employee in a car crash lawsuit. The facts of the case: Werner was held responsible for simply being on the road during an ice storm.

Over a century ago, our state Constitution was amended to allow the Legislature to create new courts of appeals, modify their districts and restrict or expand their jurisdiction. But no new appellate courts or judges have been added since 1980, even as the state’s population has more than doubled and economic growth has increased complex business litigation.

Given Texas’ significant investment in economic development and efforts to attract jobs and employers to the state, establishing a specialized business court that allows large companies to effectively resolve their disputes within Texas is the next logical step

Over two dozen cities, counties, and states–encouraged by plaintiff’s lawyers–are increasingly using the public nuisance doctrine to impose national public policy through litigation, not the Legislature.

Last week, the Texas House took important steps to improve our state’s legal system by passing House Bill 19 (Murr), creating a specialized business court to handle complex business-to-business litigation more efficiently, while freeing up other courts to focus on other kinds of cases.

The Legislature is considering Senate Bill 1318 (Huffman), which prohibits judges from granting personal recognizance bonds to defendants charged with felon in possession of a weapon.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to not hear the federal law issues in this case is certainly disappointing because it risks the creation of a patchwork of state court approaches to important public policy matters that are inherently federal and global in nature.”– Phil Goldberg, special counsel to the Manufacturers Accountability Project