Today’s “Practice Before the Texas Supreme Court” CLE

It looks like a good one. I will, unfortunately, not be there because of a conflicting engagement. I’d love to hear about it later (or contemporaneously, if anyone there will be doing the trendy Twitter thing).

At least I’m not alone with having conflicts. At least two Justices will be attending the Travis County Bench-Bar event, and Justice Hecht is of course hosting a two-day Rules Advisory Committee extravaganza.

The Entergy bill leaves the House committee

The Statesman weighs in today, saying that the Legislature should “correct” the Supreme Court on its recent Entergy decision (DB).

The editorial notes that the House version of the bill, introduced by Rep. Giddings, was voted out of committee 9-0. It now moves to the full House.

A bill that would clarify the private status of state employee birthdates

Another bill would answer the question raised by Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts v. Attorney General and the Dallas Morning News, No. 08-0172, a pending case that should be heard for argument this fall, by making the exact dates of birth of state employees confidential information that is exempt from disclosure under Texas Public Information Act.

This bill was also proposed by Rep. Giddings.

Coverage: Dallas Morning News (AP) and Weatherford Democrat (AP).

Fort Worth Court gets approval for new local rule about submitting electronic copies of briefing

The Fort Worth Court’s new local rule, like so many others, requests the brief as a word-searchable PDF — not a scanned copy of a printout.

It always surprises me how many law firms file scanned copies instead, resulting in bloated files that are difficult for the Justices (and of course court-watchers) to work with.