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First Administrative Judicial Region (Region 1) · official region site ✓ · County seat: Bonham
Preview of 25 instruments. All 16 county-scoped rules → search all three layers.
The current-bench joint standing order implementing Family Code § 102.008(c-1) in Fannin County: in any Family Code suit where § 102.008(c-1) compliance is required, the District Clerk seals all birth certificates and alternate proofs of the identity of the child's parents. Effective Jan. 1, 2026; signed by Presiding Judges Christina Tillett (336th) and Charles Butler (CCL).
The current-bench joint order on TRCP 21c sensitive data: filings must have sensitive data redacted (with 21c(e) resubmission when violated); six recognized at-risk document classes — custody evaluations, psychological evaluations, drug-test results, full DFPS case records, mental-health records, and medical records — may be restricted by the District Clerk from internet posting without further order (though not sealed absent a sealing order); and a document that must contain unredacted sensitive data is marked "NOTICE: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS SENSITIVE DATA," which the clerk may likewise restrict from online posting. Effective Jan. 1, 2026.
The 336th's confidentiality order for DFPS suits (Family Code chs. 261, 262, 264): finding that CAPTA (42 U.S.C.A. § 5106a(b)(2)(B)(viii)) and Family Code § 261.201 make child-abuse records confidential, the court restricts public access to all pleadings, orders, and documents in DFPS-brought suits — maintained restricted by the District Clerk, accessible only to DFPS, the parties, their attorneys, the attorney ad litem, and the guardian ad litem unless specifically permitted by the court — with clerk directives to file the order, provide it to ad litem appointees, send it to the CASA agency, and submit it to the district judge.
The three-court juvenile-structure order signed by all three Fannin County judges: to increase court time for juvenile administration, the County Court at Law and the County Court are designated juvenile courts alongside the 336th District Court; the CCL hears juvenile detention hearings, release/probation-condition compliance, adjudication hearings, pretrial and jury-trial hearings and related matters; the County Judge serves as back-up to the District Court and CCL; and the District Court retains counsel appointments, the Juvenile Appointment Wheel, and fee-voucher payment, with concurrent participation preserved — effective immediately.
The 336th's standing appointment of Fannin County Judge H.N. "Newt" Cunningham III as the court's Rule 171 Master in Chancery and mediator: discovery disputes in the 336th may be referred to the master for hearing and recommendation, Level-3 discovery-control-plan recommendations may be made through the master, and mediations assigned by the court to the master are WITHOUT CHARGE to the parties — while parties remain free to agree on their own mediator at their own expense.
The 336th's blanket criminal-bond mechanism: when the court adds Conditions of Bond after reviewing an indictment, a capias issues to serve those conditions on the defendant — and the District Clerk is authorized to WITHDRAW that capias upon receipt of information confirming the Conditions of Bond have in fact been served.
The joint exhibits order applying to ALL criminal and civil cases in both courts: uniform sequential numbering (Exhibit 1; subparts 1-A / 1-A1; redacted exhibits paired with an "R" original), label placement rules, 8.5×11 documents unless originals or unreasonable, per-image numbering for multi-photo media; digital audio/video in appellate-accepted formats per the Uniform Format Manual (audio ≤100 MB and video ≤5 GB per file, split into labeled subparts if larger; the enumerated accepted extensions with sponsoring-party conversion duty and appeal re-supply duty); ONLY offered files on tendered media; a duty to ensure digital evidence can be published in the courtroom BEFORE trial; physical-exhibit labeling incl. string tags and envelopes with advance arrangement for bulky items and biohazard/controlled-substance alerts; a FIREARMS section (unloaded, action open, no magazines, locking safety cord, physically incapacitated; no pointing or trigger-well contact; prior approval for function demonstrations; firearm-plus-ammunition never to a witness absent expert status and approval, and never to the jury during deliberations); reporter custody of admitted exhibits; and exclusion as the enforcement mechanism.
The joint local administrative order under which the 336th District Court and the Fannin County Court at Law may exchange benches in cases where the two courts have concurrent jurisdiction — the county's standing bench-flexibility mechanism between its district and statutory county courts.
The consent that implemented criminal-case electronic filing in the Fannin County district court: under Rule 1.2 of the Supreme Court's Rules Governing Electronic Filing in Criminal Cases (Misc. Docket No. 15-9205, eff. Nov. 1, 2015), the District Clerk requested and the district judge gave written consent to implement criminal e-filing — so filers in criminal cases in the 336th may file and serve documents through the electronic filing system or by paper. The statewide rules text accompanies the consent in the registered filing.
The paired referral orders under which both Fannin courts with Title IV-D jurisdiction route child-support-agency cases to the regional associate judge: any aspect of a case under Family Code Title 5 or Chapter 45 in which the moving party is the Title IV-D agency — including ancillary matters — is referred to the Associate Judge for Title IV-D Cases appointed to serve the First Administrative Judicial Region, with the clerk recording the order in the court's minutes. The 336th's order was signed Jan. 26, 2016 (Judge Blake) and the County Court at Law's parallel order Jan. 20, 2016 (Judge Butler).
Fannin County's family-law docketing rules (Standing Order 2011-1, signed Jan. 3, 2011): family cases are docketed numerically and randomly assigned by the District Clerk between the 336th District Court and the County Court at Law; juvenile and child-protective cases go to the 336th (as modified by the 2023 juvenile-courts designation); continuing-jurisdiction requests are filed in that court; bills of review go to the rendering court; ancillary and post-judgment collection actions follow the judgment; Rule 174(a) transfer/consolidation motions are filed in the earliest case (with the SAPCR-into-divorce exception); a 180-day refile-after-dismissal transfer rule prevents court-shopping; incoming transfers from other counties are assigned under these rules regardless of the transferring order's specification; severed claims stay in the same court as new cases; ex parte applications go first to the pending court; and ad litem appointees must receive all pleadings within five days of appointment notice.
The family-seminar mandate of the courts with family jurisdiction: all SAPCR parties must complete a court-approved seminar on the issues confronting children in divorce, custody, and support litigation — within 60 days of the petition/motion filing or notice (whichever first), or before any temporary-orders hearing — filing the original completion certificate with the district clerk; attorneys must facilitate client compliance; failure exposes a party to contempt, stricken pleadings, or TRCP 215 sanctions; good-cause waivers allowed; parties with a certificate from the prior two years are exempt.
General Order 2010-1 — the standing order in every divorce and SAPCR filed in the 336th District Court and Fannin County Court at Law: child protections (no removal from Texas, no school/day-care disruption, no hiding or moving the child, no disparagement of the other party or their family, no discussing litigation with or near the child, and no romantic partner overnight — 8:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. — during possession); conduct rules (no vulgar or threatening communications, no unreasonable-hour or anonymous calls, no opening or diverting the other party's mail, no intercepting, deleting, or recording electronic communications); fifteen property-preservation prohibitions in divorce cases (no destroying/concealing/encumbering property, no misrepresentation on proper request, no new debt except case expenses, no account withdrawals or cash spending except as authorized, no retirement borrowing, no signing the other's name on instruments, no credit-card termination, no taking the other party's vehicle, no altering tax withholding, no terminating utilities or contractual services); records preservation (family/property/financial/business records including e-mail and stored digital data; no falsification); insurance protections; specific authorizations (usual business, reasonable attorney's fees and living expenses, authorized withdrawals); attach-to-petition service with 14-day TRO effect continuing as a temporary injunction if uncontested; protective-order supremacy; mediation encouragement.
The 336th's standing order in every tax case: attorneys ad litem appointed to represent unknown parties in tax suits submit their statements for services in the usual fashion for court appointments, subject to court approval; once approved, the fees are court costs — and they must be PAID BEFORE any tax suit is dismissed from the docket.
The district courts' standing directive to the clerk implementing CPRC § 30.015 party-address notices: the § 30.015 notice must be placed on a separate clerk-approved document or card, distinct from the pleadings, maintained by the clerk in a location not subject to public disclosure and never filed in the papers of the cause — while the courts expressly authorize that names and addresses appearing IN pleadings, motions, and filed documents are NOT confidential under § 30.015 and may be disclosed as otherwise allowed by law.
JP Precinct 1's posted trial rules: proceedings are governed by TRCP Part V; any Fannin County justice may sit for any other justice court through a bench-exchange agreement (recusal, absence, or necessity); decorum; brief opening statements; the Rule invoked on request or the court's initiative; evidence requires copies for the court's file, the other side, and yourself (irrelevant evidence excluded); orderly presentation with plaintiff first and objections ruled on; the judge may question or summon witnesses to ensure a correct judgment and speedy disposition; closing statements; judgment announced in open court — with 21 days to appeal civil/small-claims judgments and 5 days for evictions.
Judge Bouressa's procedures for cases assigned to her in the First Division (supplementing the court's Local Rules): email as the preferred court channel (all parties copied except true ex parte matters); her scheduling-order form with competing-order submissions when agreement fails, trial dates set by the court (agreed answer-date extensions do not delay trial; a case may be called on its date or within 14 days after); continuances heavily disfavored; written-discovery limits per the TRCP, BCLR, her procedures, and filed Rule 11 agreements; discovery-control-plan/protective-order/ESI settings with competing proposals e-filed in advance; motions to compel must attach the request and response and group requests by subject or objection; attorney's fees may be awarded for discovery abuse "even upon the first instance"; no-setting-needed classes (substitute service, default judgment, pro hac vice, unopposed non-continuance motions) with concurrent proposed orders; opposed motions require movant-obtained settings after conferring on dates; in-person oral hearings by default with evidentiary notices, specific-conflict availability statements, citation readiness, and at least four hard copies of demonstratives; submission settings by agreement; trials — older cases first, hour-based time limits fixed at pretrial, agreed or competing judgments in Word within 14 days of verdict, proposed findings within 10 days of a timely request; and settlement mechanics — a signed non-suit/agreed dismissal, agreed judgment, or all-party notice (with jury waiver where demanded) to clear a setting, and a 45-day dismissal-with-prejudice presumption after announced settlements. Her scheduling-order template adds conferral duties 14 days before pretrial, pre-marked exhibit and Word jury-charge delivery, joinder and arbitration-motion deadlines, staged expert designations, and the mediation default — parties who fail to mediate by the deadline "will be limited to 3 hours of trial time in a jury trial or 2 hours of trial time in a bench trial."
Judge Whitehill's comprehensive chamber guidelines for Division 1B (rev. Feb. 5, 2026): a party-autonomy philosophy with active judicial management; professionalism per the Texas Rules of Professional Conduct, the Lawyer's Creed, and Dondi; NO AI NOTETAKERS in virtual conferences; an in-person planning conference within 30 days of the first defendant's appearance (client representative attending; ESI plans pre-discussed; the proposed scheduling order helpful three business days ahead; a one-year trial goal; dispositive-motion cutoff and trial date immovable without leave); early identification of pure legal issues under TRCP 166(g),(p); informal jury-charge flowcharts within 30 days of the scheduling order; status calls every two to three months; email accessibility through the Court Manager and Staff Lawyer with all counsel copied; redline comparisons with amended pleadings; court reporters scheduled for trials and dispositive hearings; targeted document requests with rule-compliant objections; the informal discovery-dispute path (authorized counsel confer → brief court phone conference with non-binding guidance → 7-day letters → motion only for what remains, modifying BCLR 4(d)); electronic courtesy copies only; dispositive-motion responses in 14 days and replies in 7 (expert-strike motions treated as dispositive); special-appearance resolution plans within a week; special-exception hearings on the movant; sealing discipline (redaction-first, temporary orders discouraged, § 134A.0065 for trade secrets, in-camera email delivery); Word proposed orders; hearings requested after filing with a 25-minute-per-side default, conducted in person in the court's hearing room or at the Robert H. Dedman SMU School of Law; briefs per BCLR 5 in 14-point Century Schoolbook with tables for 10+ pages; record-stamped single-appendix practice; a pre-trial conference at least 14 days out with the proposed pre-trial order and limine motions three days ahead; party-selected mediators against a scheduling-order deadline; jury mechanics (fee paid eight weeks out; 30–40 minutes voir dire per party; 10–20 hours of evidence per party; 25–45 minute closings; Casteel-aware charges in Word by trial day one); equivalent non-jury practice with appellate-standard findings; non-speaking objections; a 30-day settlement dismissal presumption; and the court's legal-writing guidance.
The region's governing instrument: the Amended Rules of Administration and Procedure adopted by the Council of Judges of the First Administrative Judicial Region (Sept. 7, 2016) and approved by the Supreme Court of Texas under TRCP 3a (Misc. Docket No. 17-9015, Feb. 14, 2017), applying to all district and statutory county courts in the region: Council-of-Judges governance; the Presiding Judge's § 74.047 authority and acting-PJ designation; retired/senior/former-judge service (the § 74.055(a) eligibility list with per-judge areas of expertise, the no-assignment-outside-expertise rule, and annual recertification); judge-assignment mechanics (§ 74.056; the 10-day consent limit for out-of-county active-judge assignments; order contents naming the judge's status; active judges not subject to § 74.053 objections; § 74.059(a) powers; § 74.061 pay with PJ approval of claims; inter-region requests); local administrative judges (§§ 74.091–74.092, incl. OCA security-incident reporting); the county local-rules framework (§ 74.093 majority adoption, time-standards conformance, § 74.094 bench-exchange consistency, vacation-reservation and decorum-and-recording procedures, PJ review before SCOTX approval, publication, and regional-rules supremacy on conflict); the TRCP 18a recusal procedure (3-business-day act-or-refer duty, PJ transfer or assignment, PJ-recusal motions to the Chief Justice); the Rule 6 RJA time standards (civil jury 18 months / nonjury 12; family contested 6 / uncontested 3; juvenile detention next business day, adjudication 10 days detained / 30 not, disposition 15 days); and the conflicting-settings priority ladder with LAJ → Presiding Judge → Chief Justice escalation.
The region's Art. 26.05(c) CCP fee-appeal procedure (Council-approved, eff. May 14, 2015; also reaching juvenile appointments via FC § 51.10(i)): an appointed attorney appeals a trial judge's disapproval of — or 60-day inaction on — a fee request by motion to the Regional Presiding Judge (file within 20 days of a disapproval order or 80 days of submission on inaction, timelines non-preclusive); the motion's required contents run from the cause and jurisdictional statement through the case posture, compensation basis (standard vs hourly), fee-schedule deviations, expense pre-approval, the judge's Art. 26.05(c) findings, and the enumerated attachments (the disapproval order, findings, the itemized payment request, and the county's Fair Defense Act fee schedule); the original files with the District or County Clerk with copies to the trial judge and the Presiding Judge; the PJ abates the appeal at least 10 days so the trial judge may act or reconsider; a satisfied attorney withdraws in writing, and an unsatisfied one must notify the trial judge and PJ within 5 days of any revised order that the motion remains contested.
N.D. Tex. LR 83.9 — Attorneys Not Admitted to Practice Before this Court: the court's own rule, verbatim from LOCAL CIVIL RULES OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS (Effective September 1, 2026), official PDF, sha-custodied. Court-level requirement: applies in every case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas alongside the federal rules and any judge-specific procedures.
N.D. Tex. LR 83.8 — Loss of Membership and Discipline of Attorneys: the court's own rule, verbatim from LOCAL CIVIL RULES OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS (Effective September 1, 2026), official PDF, sha-custodied. Court-level requirement: applies in every case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas alongside the federal rules and any judge-specific procedures.
N.D. Tex. LR 83.7 — Admission of Attorneys: the court's own rule, verbatim from LOCAL CIVIL RULES OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS (Effective September 1, 2026), official PDF, sha-custodied. Court-level requirement: applies in every case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas alongside the federal rules and any judge-specific procedures.
N.D. Tex. LR 83.6 — Applications to Proceed In Forma Pauperis: the court's own rule, verbatim from LOCAL CIVIL RULES OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS (Effective September 1, 2026), official PDF, sha-custodied. Court-level requirement: applies in every case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas alongside the federal rules and any judge-specific procedures.
N.D. Tex. LR 83.4.1 — Compliance with Standards of Litigation Conduct: the court's own rule, verbatim from LOCAL CIVIL RULES OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS (Effective September 1, 2026), official PDF, sha-custodied. Court-level requirement: applies in every case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas alongside the federal rules and any judge-specific procedures.