News and Insights

In March 2023 the civil and family courts moved from the 1930 courthouse at 1000 Guadalupe to the new Travis County Civil and Family Courts Facility at 1700 Guadalupe.  In-person hearings have resumed on a large scale for bench and jury trials, as well as pretrial hearings.  The building is impressive and the courtroom technology the best the county has offered to date, although officials are still working out what parking to make available to the public.  For now, lawyers, parties, and witnesses must park elsewhere.  There is metered parking on the street and a UT affiliated garage a block South on Guadalupe Street.

This transition to the new space comes with efficiencies and practices adopted during the pandemic.  For evidentiary hearings -- those where live witnesses are to be examined and cross examined, we're seeing the judges return to in-person evidence.  However, for those hearings that only require the argument of lawyers, discovery motions and the like, we're seeing the continuation of well-ordered remote hearings, which  minimize costs.  No longer having to spend half a day getting to and from the courthouse and waiting for short hearings is a welcome innovation and I'm glad its staying.  This will save individual clients money and allow me to get more done in a day for everyone.

Also staying for the moment is our two-week hearing notice and announcement protocols.  It used to be that if one wanted a hearing on Thursday, notice on the Monday of that week was sufficient.  This led to crowded dockets and getting bumped to reset when no judge was available.  Now we can look ahead to check which dockets are advantageous by knowing in advance how many other cases there are and the hours they will require and pick dates when we're more likely to get heard promptly.  So, as with many things, where one thing ends another grows, and in this instance our post-pandemic regrowth is a good thing for parties needing to use our family courts. 

Incidentally, the last courthouse transition in Travis County was also an overdue and very welcome event for the community when the 1930 PWA Moderne style "Greco Deco" courthouse opened at 1000 Guadalupe .  It replaced the 1876 courthouse whose stone frame and Mansard roof towers had become home to a colony of our Mexican free tailed bats.  The Austin American Statesman ran hilarious articles in the 1920s quoting jurors so bitten up with fleas and burdened with the smell of the bats during jury service, that some of them said they'd have preferred to hold the trial in the jail, which at the time was cleaner than the courthouse. 

I'll remember the old courthouse, where I tried and won many important cases.  I'll also remember the old Dog & Duck Pub, where my friends and I celebrated passing the Bar Exam the day we learned the news.  The Dog & Duck closed when the county acquired the land and our new Travis County Civil and Family Courts now stands where it stood.