What to Expect in Dallas County Civil District Courts

The courts

Dallas County has 13 civil district courts: the 14th, 44th, 68th, 95th, 101st, 116th, 134th, 160th, 162nd, 191st, 192nd, 193rd and 298th Judicial District Courts. They sit in the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building at 600 Commerce Street in downtown Dallas. Each court has one judge, elected countywide, and a court coordinator who manages the docket. The civil district courts handle the commercial cases this library is about: contract, partnership, fiduciary, fraud, construction, real estate and trade secret disputes, along with injury and other civil matters.

Dallas County also has five county courts at law that hear civil cases, including many commercial disputes, under the same statewide rules of procedure and the same local rules, with a few modifications set out in Part V of the local rules. Family, probate, criminal and juvenile courts are separate systems.

Which court your case belongs in is a question of jurisdiction and venue that is decided before filing. Where a business can file suit under the Texas venue rules covers county selection; whether a case belongs in state or federal court covers the federal alternative.

How a judge is assigned

Local Rule 1.01 of the Civil Courts of Dallas County requires every civil case filed with the District Clerk to be assigned to the civil district courts in random order. No party can choose a judge, and no lawyer can promise one. Once assigned, the case stays with that court through judgment; Dallas does not use a central docket in which different judges hear different motions in the same case. The judge who rules on the first motion is the judge who will try the case, which gives consistency and makes the court's habits worth learning.

Related cases are the exception. Under Local Rules 1.06 through 1.08, a later case arising from the same transaction as an earlier one, or that depends on the effect of an earlier judgment, may be transferred to the court that heard the earlier case, and the lawyer filing the later case must disclose the relationship in the original pleading. Collateral attacks on a judgment and proceedings ancillary to a pending suit go to the court that rendered the judgment or is hearing the suit. The Local Administrative Judge can transfer cases between courts to balance dockets.

Filing and the District Clerk

Attorneys must file electronically through eFileTexas, the statewide system, under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21. The Dallas County District Clerk accepts the filing, assigns the case number and court, and issues citations for service. Filings and the docket are searchable online, which is why pleadings should be written in the knowledge that customers and competitors can read them. Court costs and jury fees are paid through the same system.

Motions: the Dallas rules that catch newcomers

The statewide Texas Rules of Civil Procedure govern what motions exist and when responses are due. The Dallas local rules add procedure that lawyers from other counties sometimes miss.

• Certificate of conference (Local Rule 2.07). No motion may be filed or set for hearing without a certificate that the movant's counsel tried to resolve the dispute with opposing counsel. The rule requires at least three attempts to contact opposing counsel, during business hours, on at least two business days, before filing. A motion without the certificate is not set.
• Notice of hearing (Local Rule 2.11). A party who obtains a hearing setting must serve written notice on all parties within one business day.
• TRO applications (Local Rule 2.02). Counsel presenting an application for a temporary restraining order or other ex parte relief must notify opposing counsel, or the unrepresented party, and provide the application and proposed order at least two hours before presenting it to the court, unless a verified pleading shows why notice should be excused. Applications for immediate relief are presented only after the case has been filed and assigned (Local Rule 2.01).
• Agreed matters (Local Rule 2.06). Uncontested motions are presented with a proposed order reflecting all parties' agreement and generally need no hearing, except continuances in cases over a year old.
• Submission. Many Dallas judges decide non-evidentiary motions on written submission without oral argument, and each court publishes its own procedures for settings, submission days and remote appearances. Reading the assigned court's procedures page is part of the first week's work.

Scheduling orders and discovery

Discovery is sized by the level the plaintiff pleads under Rule 190: Level 1 for expedited actions, Level 2 as the default, Level 3 by court order with a tailored plan. Dallas judges typically issue a scheduling order early in the case, often after an agreed proposal from counsel, setting the trial date and the deadlines that lead to it: amending pleadings, designating experts, completing discovery, filing dispositive motions and mediating. The order is the case's calendar, and missing a deadline in it has consequences under the rules, including exclusion of late-designated witnesses. The stages of a commercial lawsuit in Texas walks through the sequence the order sets.

Mediation is expected

Chapter 154 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code allows a court, on its own motion or a party's, to refer a case to mediation or another alternative dispute resolution procedure, and a party has ten days after the referral to object. Dallas civil judges use that authority routinely: most scheduling orders in business cases require mediation before trial, and a case that has not mediated may find its trial setting conditioned on it. The parties choose and pay the mediator; the county's Dispute Resolution Center provides subsidized mediation only for parties who cannot afford a private mediator. Whether the court will order mediation explains what a referral requires and what it does not.

Trial settings and the week before trial

Dallas civil courts set cases for a trial week rather than a fixed day and hour, and more than one case is usually set for the same week on the assumption that some will settle or be continued. The local rules govern what happens as the week approaches:

• Announcements (Local Rule 3.02). Counsel must announce their readiness to the court administrator on the Thursday before the trial week, and no later than 10:30 a.m. on the Friday before. A plaintiff who fails to announce consents to the case being passed, reset or dismissed for want of prosecution.
• Continuances (Local Rule 3.01). A trial setting is not passed or reset without all parties' consent or notice and an opportunity to object. After a case has been on file for one year, it is reset for a party only on a showing of good cause.
• Carryover (Local Rule 3.04). A case not reached in its week may be carried from week to week with notice, and counsel must announce again for each week.
• Availability (Local Rule 3.05). During the trial week counsel must be reachable by telephone, and a call from the court administrator is notice that the case is called for trial.

For a business, this means the trial date is real but not precise. Witnesses, including the company's own executives, must hold the week open, and the case may be reached on short notice or carried. A jury demand and fee must be filed at least 30 days before the trial date under Rule 216. Jurors are drawn from the county's central jury room. How long a case waits for a first setting, and how often it is carried, depends on the court's docket, and a Dallas litigator's estimate will be specific to the assigned court rather than a county-wide figure.

The Business Court and the federal court

Since September 2024 Texas has had a Business Court for larger commercial disputes. Its First Division covers the First Administrative Judicial Region, which includes Dallas, Collin, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Kaufman and Rockwall Counties, with judges appointed by the Governor who keep chambers within the division. A qualifying case can be filed there or removed to it from a district court, and its appeals go to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals rather than the Fifth. Which cases the Texas Business Court hears explains the thresholds.

Federal cases from Dallas are heard in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, in the Earle Cabell Federal Building at 1100 Commerce Street, two blocks from the state courthouse. Federal practice runs on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Northern District's local rules, with a Rule 26(f) conference, a scheduling order under Rule 16, written motion practice and a judge-driven calendar. The documents in dispute are the same; the procedure, the pace and the jury pool are not.

What the client will experience

Most of a Dallas civil case happens on paper and in conference rooms. Hearings on motions are often short and may be held remotely for non-evidentiary matters, depending on the court. Depositions take place in law offices, not the courthouse. The client is likely to be in the courtroom for a temporary injunction hearing if there is one, for mediation if the court or mediator convenes it there (most are held at the mediator's office), and for trial. Courthouse security screening, parking downtown and the courtroom's rules on phones and dress are small matters that are worth knowing in advance.

Appeals from the Dallas civil district courts and county courts at law go to the Fifth Court of Appeals, which also sits in Dallas. That stage is covered in the article on appealing a business case in Texas.

Tina Wysk practices in the Dallas County civil district courts, the Business Court and the Northern District of Texas from her office in downtown Dallas.