New Law Blogs

How to Make PDF E-Briefs for the Texas Supreme Court

By Don Cruse

The blog has covered the Texas Supreme Court’s new rules for electronic briefs, including a few pointers on what’s likely to trip you up.¹

Today, I’m posting my own guide about how to make electronic briefs for the Texas Supreme Court. You can access the most current version through this link.²

My suggested workflow leaves room for the more advanced (and optional) steps of making internal bookmarks and simple hyperlinks — both of which are permitted within the Texas Supreme Court order. I also offer a little advice about redacting sensitive information from your PDF with confidence.

Upcoming Talk

Next week, I’ll be speaking with Blake Hawthorne at the UT Conference on State and Federal Appeals about how electronic briefs fit into appellate practice. It’s a short talk, but we will try to cover the big picture and offer some practical advice.

In the spirit of Kendall Gray’s nice series of blog posts previewing his panel on oral advocacy, I’d also like to know what’s on your mind before the conference. How do you see electronic briefs affecting written advocacy?

1. The Court made a few tweaks to the rule (primarily about emailed copies) effective May 31.
2. I chose to host the guide at Google Docs for easy updating. You don’t need an account to view the file. And if you want to download a PDF version, you can do so under the “File” menu on the Google Docs menu bar.

Full post as published by Supreme Court of Texas Blog on May 26, 2010 (boomark / email).