Grants, GVRs, and Per Curiams: Checking in on the New Petition-for-Review Rules

And so what we intend to do today is just to talk a little about things that are covered in my paper, uh, maybe set the stage a little bit first on what led us to this topic, get into the, the, some of the paper topics maybe.

I think one thing we definitely wanted to do is cover any- anything that varied from the preliminary rules to the final rules-

Mm-hmm

... that were released, because we did not, we have not recorded on this topic since then.

The good news is, is it's not a lot, uh, but there are a few things that are maybe worth pointing out.

So I'll just refer to my paper, like we did yours.

It's Volume 35, Number 2 of the Appellate Advocate, a paper entitled, "A New Era in Texas Supreme Court Practice: Breaking Down the New Petition for Review Rules." That sounds very academic.

It's not quite-

It does.

I know.

[laughs]

You kinda put your law professor hat on.

It's not quite that, that academic.

And as I think we're gonna talk about here, uh, as we, as we get into it, we don't really know a lot yet to, to-

Mm-hmm

... be able to get too academic about it, as strange as that sounds.

So just to come back to kind of what led to this.

Back in episode 157, shortly after the preliminary rules were announced, we recorded an episode where we just kind of broke those down, uh, went into a fair amount of detail on those preliminary rules and what we thought they meant for appellate practice.

And I'll refer listeners back to that episode.

We'll try not to replow the same ground too much here today, although we'll have to revisit some things.

But the, the high points were, you know, the Supreme Court decided that the, the two-part system, I guess three parts by the time you got to a, a, a grant and an actual opinion, was not terribly efficient.

Um, you know, it was not the best use of the court's time.

It was costing the litigants a lot of money to go through a petition process followed by a merits brief process, followed by a grant decision, and then an opinion.

And so it's now been, um, I don't wanna say consolidated because there still are briefs on the merits, but now we've got instead of a 4,500-word petition, we've got a 6,500-word limit petition.

Merits briefs are not called for until the court has decided to grant the case.

And so what we intend to do today is just to talk a little about things that are covered in my paper, uh, maybe set the stage a little bit first on what led us to this topic, get into the, the, some of the paper topics maybe.

I think one thing we definitely wanted to do is cover any- anything that varied from the preliminary rules to the final rules-

Mm-hmm

... that were released, because we did not, we have not recorded on this topic since then.

The good news is, is it's not a lot, uh, but there are a few things that are maybe worth pointing out.

So I'll just refer to my paper, like we did yours.

It's Volume 35, Number 2 of the Appellate Advocate, a paper entitled, "A New Era in Texas Supreme Court Practice: Breaking Down the New Petition for Review Rules." That sounds very academic.

It's not quite-

It does.

I know.

[laughs]

You kinda put your law professor hat on.

It's not quite that, that academic.

And as I think we're gonna talk about here, uh, as we, as we get into it, we don't really know a lot yet to, to-

Mm-hmm

... be able to get too academic about it, as strange as that sounds.

So just to come back to kind of what led to this.

Back in episode 157, shortly after the preliminary rules were announced, we recorded an episode where we just kind of broke those down, uh, went into a fair amount of detail on those preliminary rules and what we thought they meant for appellate practice.

And I'll refer listeners back to that episode.

We'll try not to replow the same ground too much here today, although we'll have to revisit some things.

But the, the high points were, you know, the Supreme Court decided that the, the two-part system, I guess three parts by the time you got to a, a, a grant and an actual opinion, was not terribly efficient.

Um, you know, it was not the best use of the court's time.

It was costing the litigants a lot of money to go through a petition process followed by a merits brief process, followed by a grant decision, and then an opinion.

And so it's now been, um, I don't wanna say consolidated because there still are briefs on the merits, but now we've got instead of a 4,500-word petition, we've got a 6,500-word limit petition.

Merits briefs are not called for until the court has decided to grant the case.