Houston business disputes, in the Harris County courts.

Harris County civil cases are heard in downtown Houston, in the civil district courts and the county civil courts at law. Appeals go to either the First or the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, which sit together in Houston and share the same counties; a case is assigned to one of them when the appeal is filed. Federal and bankruptcy cases go to the Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas.

Our Harris County results include a judgment with a fee award in the 133rd District Court, a judgment for our client in the 164th, a judgment for a construction company in the county civil courts, and the dismissal of an owner sued alongside his company. See the Southern District and the Houston courts of appeals.

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.