Brad Hubbard

After a highly successful, productive and largely uncontroversial first 18 months, the burgeoning Texas Business Court recently faced its first constitutional challenge. In Brown v. Exxon Mobil Corp., former Exxon executive Artis Brown — represented by prominent plaintiffs’ lawyer Tony Buzbee — asked the Business Court to declare itself unconstitutional. He took issue with the court’s (1) geographic scope and (2) method of judicial selection. But those complaints aren’t novel.

The Texas Supreme Court recently adopted extensive amendments to the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure that will have a dramatic effect on litigation before the Court. Most notably, the Court all but eliminated its practice of requesting merits briefs before deciding whether to grant review of a case. Going forward, the Court will ordinarily decide whether to grant review, request merits briefs and schedule oral argument based on the petition-stage briefing alone.