A New Service on the Texas Legal Horizon: Texas Supreme Court Index

Since the late 1950\u27s the Texas Supreme Court Journal has been a mainstay of Texas lawyers, offering speedy copies of all supreme court opinions as well as writ dispositions. Though the Texas Supreme Court Journal is invaluable, it does have one major deficiency. Marian Boner\u27s Reference Guide to Texas Law and Legal History puts the problem succinctly: There is no cumulation, and the cases are not indexed. A new publication, Texas Supreme Court Index+, is now making a creditable bid to fill that gap. A weekly service originating in Houston, the Index+ contains up-to-date data on the disposition of appeals by the Texas Supreme Court. The Texas Supreme Court Index+ is not designed to replace or compete with the Journal. It does not contain the text of opinions, synopses of applications granted, or the points of error upon which they were granted What the Texas Supreme Court Index+ does provide is a convenient and rapid way to ascertain the current status of a case pending before the supreme court. The Index + is an 8 \u27/2 by 11 photocopy of a computer printout. A case can be found either alphabetically by its name, through a direct and reverse index to case styles, or by checking the court of appeals citation, in much the same way as one would use the West writs tables. The citation index gives the current case status; the direct index provides full procedural history, including motions, date of argument, and so on