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District Judge · 143rd District Court
What applies in this courtroom
758 verified requirements may apply in this courtroom, by layer: 5 published by Judge Alan J. Nicholas · 0 county-wide · 2 region-wide · 751 statewide — with 9 rule deadlines across those layers. Only the judge's own rules are specific to this courtroom; the other layers apply by court, county and state scope, and a court- or case-specific order can displace them.
The tabs below show the judge-and-division layer only. The Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack — every requirement, deadline table, ruling intelligence, live case-type scan, and source appendix in one cited document.
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District Judge — 143rd District Court, Loving County
District Judge — 143rd District Court, Reeves County
District Judge — 143rd District Court, Ward County
Appeals from this courtroom go to the Eighth Court of Appeals.
● LiveThat court's published bench (3): Gina M. Palafox, Lisa Soto, Salas Mendoza
County-to-district assignment per Tex. Gov't Code sec. 22.201(i), live-fetched registry.
5 verified rules specific to this judge's division, grouped by requirement category. 758 total requirements apply in this courtroom across all layers — the Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack.
No judge-level deadline on record runs shorter than a statewide deadline with the same trigger. The sentinel compares quoted timing across every published rule scoped to this judge on each visit — a clean result today is re-earned tomorrow.
Standing order of the 143rd District Court for Ward County: affidavits, court reports and other documents filed in suits brought by the Department of Family and Protective Services under Family Code chapters 261, 262 and 264 are confidential and maintained as such by the Ward County District Clerk; access is limited to the court, an associate judge, DFPS employees, employees of a Single Source Continuum Contractor acting as DFPS's authorized agent, a party, a party's attorney, any attorney ad litem or guardian ad litem for the child, an adoptive parent, and the Office of the Attorney General. Others may request access with the attached Request for Access to Confidential DFPS Court Records (Exhibit "A"); e-filing under TRCP 21(f) is not affected.
Standing order of the 143rd District Court: no final contested divorce trial is set without a certified attempt at mediation or other ADR, or a joint request for final contested hearing stating the issues and time needed; the court may order mediation; in pro se divorces the court may appoint an amicus attorney, ADR attempts are required, and pro se parties share the cost of any amicus or court-ordered mediation.
Standing order of the 143rd District Court (Loving, Reeves and Ward Counties): from September 1, 2025 every waiver of arraignment must be signed by the defendant as well as defense counsel; a waiver without the defendant's signature is rejected and the matter set for arraignment.
Standing order of the 143rd District Court exempting all parties in tax lawsuits filed in Loving, Reeves and Ward Counties under Property Tax Code chapters 31-34 from the automatic disclosures of Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 194; a party served with discovery requests must still respond to them timely.
No judge-scoped deadlines on this tab. Deadlines are extracted only when the source rule text states them — we never infer or calculate dates the rule does not explicitly contain. 9 rule deadlines apply in this courtroom across all layers — assembled with citations in the Full Premium Report.
Timing shown here is quoted from the rule text. Compute your actual date against the court's calendar and the rule itself — not legal advice.
No verified ruling summary yet. BenchPath generates ruling summaries from opinion and docket corpora (CourtListener where covered) and publishes them only after human review — fabricated judicial analytics are exactly what this platform refuses to ship.
The attributed-opinion corpus covers Florida appellate decisions today; a Texas opinion corpus is a separate build. Absence here is a coverage statement, never evidence about this judge.
Use the live case-law search below to see what exists for this judge today.
Answer three quick questions. The platform pulls Alan J. Nicholas's full public case-law record from the source, newest first — your matter never narrows the pull; it directs the relevance ranking and the dual-AI analysis. Every hit comes back Bluebook-cited with the opinion's own words quoted verbatim. The scan takes the time precision takes.
Case-law search
CourtListener · free connector · liveCoverage note: CourtListener is strongest for federal courts and state appellate courts. Texas trial-court opinions are essentially absent from the source — an absence of results is a coverage gap, not evidence about this judge.
last checked September 24, 2026
last checked —
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District Judge — 143rd District Court, Loving Countycurrent
date not recorded — present
assignment source →District Judge — 143rd District Court, Reeves Countycurrent
date not recorded — present
assignment source →District Judge — 143rd District Court, Ward Countycurrent
date not recorded — present
assignment source →No source changes detected for this judge yet — when the underlying court pages move, it shows up here first.