Reference Tidbit - Using Google Scholar for Combined Search of Texas State Court Opinions

By Jessica R. Alexander, J.D., M. L. S., Reference Librarian

The official web sites of the courts in the Texas Judicial system are not integrated when it comes to case and opinion searches. See Texas Courts Online. Thanks to the Google Scholar search this problem is solved to some degree.

Obviously Google has a search algorithm that extracts Texas appellate opinions from the official websites. Google overlays them with a Southwest Reporter citation. Of course the search is limited by the date spans of the loaded opinions.

To perform a search, go to the main Google page and click More and click on ScholarYou can search from that page by clicking the button Legal opinions and journals, or, even better, click on the Advanced search button. Put in your search terms and go to the bottom of the search form and specify the courts (either state or federal) that you want to search. Note there is also a link to a menu of combined searches. You can search any or all of the state or federal courts in a particular jurisdiction. The images below depict a sample search. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Texas Code Revision - The Venerable Probate Code Gets a Name Change

Jessica R. Alexander, J.D.,M.L.S., Reference Librarian.

Effective January 2014, the Texas Probate Code will be replaced by the Estates Code. The Probate Code revision project involves a non-substantive revision of the code. Follow the foregoing link for a full explanation of the project. West has issued an interim pamphlet (2009) Pamphlet Vernon's Texas Codes Annotated Estates Code) (KFT1230.5 V4 E88) with the changes approved by the 81st Legislature. This unannotated pamphlet is shelved just after the Elections Code and contains Title 1 - General Provisions and Title 2 - Estates of Decedents. Further revisions will be presented by the Texas Legislative Council to the 82nd Legislature in January 2011. The council is responsible for the Texas code revision project that has been going on for more than forty years. The goal of the project is to simplify Texas law by turning the old statutory alphabetical arrangement into subject matter codes. The Probate Code existed before the revision project, and was placed alphabetically between the statutory arrangement in Vernon's Texas Revised Civil Statutes Annotated. These statutes were last revised in bulk in 1925, and changes and additions to the laws made these "Black Statutes," confusing.

An in depth explanation of Texas statutory history is contained in Chapter 11 of Texas Legal Research: an Essential Lawyering Skill by Lydia M. Brandt. (1995). Some of the material in this book must be brought up to date by the reader.

Texas Legal Research Reference Tidbits: Historical Texas Statutory Bulk Revisions

A "bulk revision" of a set of laws is a re-publication of statutes in existence by legislative authority. Texas has had a series of bulk revisions in its existence as a state and now the revisions are available at the website of the Texas State Law Library:

Revised Statutes of Texas, 1879
available in paper in our library at KFT1230 1879.T4 in the Main stacks and Special Collections

Revised Statutes of Texas, 1895,

available at KFT1230 1895.T4, Main stacks

Revised Statutes of Texas, 1911

available at KFT1230 1911.T4, Special Collections only

Revised Statutes of Texas, 1925

available at KFT1230 1925.T4, Main stacks

H.P.N. Gammel's Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, is also a very important historical publication. Gammel's compiles the colonization, pre-statehood, and stathood laws of Texas. The University of North Texas Library, Government Documents Department has digitized Gammels. In our library the publication is available at KFT1225.T4 in the Main stacks, Special Collections, and on microfiche. There is also a link to a partial digital collection from the Law Library Microform Consortium (LLMC) from STELLA, our catalogue.