Persevering in the Pandemic: Texas Courts

• Author: Justice Debra H. Lehrmann
• Pages: 35-35

SUMMER 2020 35

Persevering in the Pandemic

TEXAS COURTS

By JUSTICE DEBRA H. LEHRMANN

Supreme Court held its last two rounds of oral arguments for

the 2019–20 term remotely through a digital platform and

livestreamed videos of the arguments on the Internet.

Possession Schedules

e pandemic hit just before spring break. In response,

schools across the country extended their spring breaks or

announced a second week of spring break. en schools

closed for the rest of the semester. e Texas Supreme Court

issued an order clarifying that child possession and access

schedules would not be aected by these school closures and

would be controlled by the original school schedule. e

court later issued an order clarifying that stay-at-home orders

likewise did not aect possession and access schedules.

Eviction Proceedings

It can be dicult to stay at home when you’ve just been

evicted, and many people were having trouble paying rent

after losing their jobs in the pandemic. e court issued an

order pausing residential eviction proceedings.

Federal Aid

With Congress’s passage of the CARES Act, the federal

government began disbursing funds to families across the

nation to help them weather the crisis. For some families

though, this relief money was immediately targeted for debt

collection. To ensure that the federal aid served its intended

purpose, the Texas Supreme Court paused garnishments and

default judgments in consumer debt collection cases. fa

This spring, courts across the nation found

themselves presented with an unprecedented

question. Not a new law or legal argument but

something more practical: how to operate in the

midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. With large gatherings

banned, was a jury trial possible? If a party in a case was

COVID-19 positive, could the party appear before a court?

Were remote hearings using digital technology a valid

substitute for in-person hearings? Could deadlines be

extended? How were possession schedules aected by an

extended spring break? Should a person be evicted when he/

she was supposed to stay at home? With these questions

vexing the country’s courts, the court system in Texas took

the lead. e Texas Supreme Court, under its emergency

power and its power to regulate the legal profession, issued

orders to guide the courts in Texas through these uncertain

times. Texas’s Oce of Court Administration also worked

diligently to facilitate the remote hearings allowed and

encouraged by the Texas Supreme Court and to guide courts,

attorneys, and parties in the use of digital technology. Here

are some of the innovations and solutions used by the Texas

courts.

Staying Home

e Texas Supreme Court began by issuing an emergency

order authorizing courts to modify or suspend deadlines and

to conduct remote proceedings. e order also required

courts to use those measures when the enforcement of a

deadline or an in-person proceeding might spread the virus.

e court later issued another order expanding upon the rst

by prohibiting courts from conducting nonessential proceed-

ings that would violate state and local restrictions and

clarifying that the orders applied to all child-protection cases

and deadlines.

Using Digital Technology

With in-person hearings on hold, remote hearings were the

only option for parties with pressing matters. Texas’s Oce

of Court Administration quickly learned the ins and outs of

digital platforms and coached judges, attorneys, and parties

on how to use those platforms to conduct hearings remotely.

As of this writing, the Oce of Court Administration had

overseen about 50,000 remote hearings totaling almost

84,000 hours with over 174,000 participants. e Texas

JUSTICE DEBRA H. LEHRMANN has served

on the Supreme Court of Texas since 2010, hav-

ing been elected to the court twice following her

gubernatorial appointment. She serves as the

court’s liaison to the State Bar of Texas, the State

Bar Judicial Section’s Judicial Ethics Committee,

the Board of Disciplinary Appeals, the Texas

Association for Court Administration, the State Bar Family Law

Section, the State Bar Family Law Council, and the Texas Attorney–

Mediator Coalition. With a total of over 30 years’ judicial experi-

ence, she was a trial judge in Tarrant County for 23 years prior to

her appellate service and has served the Bar in leadership capaci-

ties on both state and national levels.

Published in Family Advocate, Volume 43, Number 1, Summer 2020. © 2020 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof

may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.