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The 328th Judicial District Court Rules of Practice (January 1, 2025) — Fort Bend County. The operative requirements are quoted verbatim from the governing document (registered/posted 01/07/2025); the document in custody is the controlling text.
Texas > Fort Bend County > 328th District Court
These Rules of Practice apply to all legal proceedings in the 328th Judicial District Court, effective January 1, 2025, and apply equally to attorneys and self-represented litigants. … ALL hearings shall be scheduled through the court coordinator (328th@fortbendcountytx.gov); ALL hearings and trials shall be conducted in person except the Friday Zoom Docket, the Evening Zoom Docket, and the Submission Docket — there will be no hybrid hearings; docket call is at 8:30 a.m.; announcements of pass, conflicts, or late appearances shall be emailed to the coordinator and all opposing counsel and self-represented litigants before 8:30 a.m. … Mediation is required PRIOR to any temporary-orders hearing if conservatorship, possession and access, or geographical restriction is contested, and prior to any temporary-orders hearing whose time estimate exceeds one hour, unless waived; except for applications for protective orders, motions for enforcement/contempt, and no-answer defaults, mediation is required prior to trial unless waived; the mediator's report and Mediated Settlement Agreement must be filed. … For temporary-orders hearings where child or spousal support is disputed, the parties SHALL exchange by 12:00 noon on the business day before the hearing: a Financial Information Statement, income tax returns for the previous two years, the two most recent payroll stubs, and proposed support calculations; for ALL temporary-orders hearings the parties shall exchange proposed requested relief by the same deadline; this rule constitutes a discovery request; the materials MUST be submitted to the Court during the hearing. … For final trial, each party's final sworn inventory, FIS, Family Code financial information, proposed child-support calculation, proposed division of property, and proposed requested relief shall be exchanged no later than ten days before trial; sworn inventories or the proposed division shall list and total in column format all property values and liabilities and show the net worth of the community estate and any claimed separate estate. … Exhibit lists and witness lists shall be exchanged and filed with the clerk by 12:00 noon on the business day before any hearing or trial; exhibits shall be pre-marked (numbers only) with copies provided to all counsel and self-represented litigants by the same deadline. … Temporary-orders hearings are limited to 1.5 hours without contested parent-child issues and 3 hours with them, time allocated evenly. Trial should occur within one year of an original suit and within six months of a modification suit. Pretrial conferences are mandatory for all jury trials (completed at least 7 days before trial, with Jury Trial Preparation Order information exchanged at least 3 days before the conference) and for all adoptions. Final trials before the Associate Judge require a filed Stipulated Waiver of Appeal from Associate Judge's Ruling. … The Friday Zoom Docket (8:30 a.m.) hears only agreed prove-ups, name changes, contested entries of order, motions for continuance, and motions for referral to mediation; the Evening Zoom Docket (first and third Tuesday, 5:30-7:30 p.m.) hears prove-ups of uncontested matters with 72-hour signup and filing deadlines; the Submission Docket (Fridays 8:30 a.m.) hears the enumerated contested motions with 10-day notice and 3-day response deadlines; opposed motions require a certificate of conference. … Proposed orders must be provided to opposing counsel five days before entry; objections are due by noon the day before; ALL orders must be signed as APPROVED TO FORM; failure to file a proposed order by the entry date may result in dismissal. Cases may be dismissed for want of prosecution for failure to mediate, failure to appear at a scheduled pretrial conference or the DWOP docket, failure of the Petitioner/Movant to appear for trial, or failure to file the proposed final order and required documents by the entry date. … IT IS ORDERED THAT RECORDING ZOOM PROCEEDINGS IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN; participants and public live-stream viewers are prohibited from recording, capturing, saving, broadcasting, televising, or photographing proceedings in any manner; violation may result in contempt. … Court appointments require an annual Application for Court Appointments; absent agreement the Court utilizes the wheel and may deviate for good cause. Parties may request a de novo hearing before the District Judge under Tex. Fam. Code § 201.015 (including IV-D cases under § 201.1042 and Child Protection Cases heard in the Coastal Bend Children's Court under § 201.2042); the associate judge may refer complex cases back under § 201.204, and the Court considers all cases where termination is at issue on final trial as complex. SIGNED January 1, 2025 — Monica Rawlins, Presiding Judge; Felishia R. Young, Associate Judge.
Reviewer note: Operative provisions transcribed verbatim by vision-read of the registered scanned document (rasterized at 170 dpi and read page-by-page this session); the registered document (sha256 7e6f13961abe…) is the controlling text. The identical instrument is posted on the court's standing-orders page (different scan session, page-for-page identical content; page-one visual comparison performed). Full transcript retained in fb-transcripts/2185-328th-rules-of-practice.md.
Establishes a Traffic Violations Bureau within the Clerk of the County Court under Fla. R. Traf. Ct. 6.100(a) (Burnstein, C.J., Nov. 1, 1988).
Approves the National Highway Safety Council Defensive Driving course as a school to which traffic courts may require attendance (Fla. R. Traf. Ct. 6.110(a)).
Designates the D.W.I. Counterattack School (Broward County Commission on Alcoholism) as an approved school for court-ordered attendance (Fla. R. Traf. Ct. 6.110(a)).