Probate Judge · Probate Court No. 1
What applies in this courtroom
27 verified requirements may apply in this courtroom, by layer: 5 published by Judge Claudia L. Laird · 9 county-wide · 2 region-wide · 11 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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Judge — Probate Court No. 1, Montgomery County
Appeals from this courtroom go to the Ninth Court of Appeals.
● LiveThat court's published bench (4): Jay Wright, Kent Chambers, Leanne Johnson, Scott Golemon
County-to-district assignment per Tex. Gov't Code sec. 22.201(j), live-fetched registry.
5 verified rules specific to this judge's division, grouped by requirement category. 27 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.
Judge Claudia Laird's recording policy for Probate Court No. 1: recording (photographing, audio, or video by any means) is prohibited in the court without written approval from the presiding judge placed in the case file; approval may be revoked if recording becomes a distraction; no video of jurors is permitted even with approval; equipment must be set up in advance to avoid distraction; Zoom proceedings and the YouTube videos compiled from them may not be recorded or obtained by subpoena or other means; recording outside the courtroom must not create a distraction or restrict movement through the courtroom doors, courthouse, or court offices; approved recordings are not part of the official court record; the court may enforce the policy by any legal or equitable process; and the policy does not apply to investitures or ceremonial proceedings.
Judge Claudia Laird's standing order (No. 05282026) modifying the guardian visitation requirement in Probate Court No. 1: taking judicial notice of Tex. Estates Code sec. 1151.351(b)(19), a guardian of the estate only is not required to make visits if another person acts as guardian of the person for the ward, unless the ward or the guardian of the person requests an in-person visit.
Judge Claudia Laird's standing order on remote hearings and appearances in Probate Court No. 1: the court uses Zoom (the Court Reporter or Court Administrator emails the link, or litigants obtain the link for regularly scheduled dockets from the court's website); a participant able to appear only by telephone must coordinate it the day before with the appropriate court coordinator; a litigant intending to offer exhibits must email them to all parties and the Court Reporter no later than 3:00 p.m. the day before the hearing, with the email subject stating the full cause number and '[Party Name] Exhibits' and the documents in PDF format — the court cannot consider, and the Court Reporter will not maintain in the record, exhibits not timely emailed in the correct format; and an attorney noticing a Zoom hearing must include in the notice the Zoom link and meeting ID (provided by the court when the hearing is set).
Judge Claudia Laird's standing order requiring applicants filing a Small Estate Affidavit in Probate Court No. 1 to use the court-promulgated forms published on the court's website (the affidavit and the order), to facilitate administration of the increasing number of small-estate-affidavit filings.
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's and California's 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 Claudia L. Laird'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 October 24, 2026
Research connectors
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No source changes detected for this judge yet — when the underlying court pages move, it shows up here first.