The Fifth Court of Appeals, for Dallas and its neighbors.

The court sits in Dallas and has six counties: Dallas, Collin, Grayson, Hunt, Kaufman and Rockwall. Denton and Tarrant County appeals go to the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth instead.

In 2025 this court sanctioned counsel for citing authority that did not exist, under its inherent power and without any local rule on AI. Every citation in a brief here is checked against the source. civil appeals · restricted appeals · superseding a judgment.

Texas state courts. No statewide rule on AI is in force. In June 2026 the Supreme Court of Texas preliminarily approved a new Rule 13 under which signing a filing certifies that the signer verified it, including that its citations, quotations and holdings are not fabricated; no final order had issued. The Business Court’s Local Rule 10(c) permits AI but makes the filer independently responsible for every filing. The courts of appeals have no AI rules but sanction fabricated authority under their inherent power, as the Dallas court did in 2025, and Ethics Opinion 705 advises verifying every output, protecting confidences and supervising its use.

Checked against each court’s own rules and orders on 5 November 2026 for John Henry’s talk “AI in Modern Litigation” at the Eastern District of Texas Bankruptcy Bench Bar Conference. Rules change; the full reference, with every order cited, is on the AI in litigation page.