The Judicial Council’s technology committee moved on Wednesday to revise statewide technology standards to add specific filing types for motions for summary judgment and related responses, and to press counties and vendors to improve electronic service and public-access integration.

Committee members, led by the chair (speaker 8), agreed to send an amended technology-standards submission (10.1, or a successor version) recommending that case-management systems include a filing choice for “motion for summary judgment” and the companion filing types — response and reply — so automated time clocks and reporting can trigger correctly. The motion to forward the update was made by an attendee (speaker 9) and received general agreement from the group during the meeting.

Why this matters: recent statutory changes created new automatic deadlines tied to summary-judgment filings, and committee members said many county case-management systems and e-filing menus do not currently flag those filings in ways that let clerks or the system start required time clocks or produce consistent statewide reports. Bob (speaker 5), chairing the standards subcommittee, said the proposed work will produce recommended minimum functional requirements so counties have a baseline when upgrading systems.

Committee members emphasized the guidance is intended as a recommended baseline, not a mandate. “Minimum standards for case management systems,” Bob said during the discussion, adding the goal is to help smaller counties identify the features they need without forcing system replacements.

The meeting also focused heavily on e-service and Research Texas delivery. Tyler (speaker 13), who presented system metrics, reported statewide e-filing adoption in the high‑60s to mid‑70s percent range (the presentation cited roughly 75% in the most recent snapshot) and described return-for-correction rates that remain elevated for certain case types. The committee asked staff to investigate why a large share of filings appear not to be e-served, including possible causes such as filers submitting as “file only” and later doing a separate e-serve, paralegal workflows that wait for acceptance before serving, and integration gaps between county case-management systems and Research Texas.

On confidentiality and criminal-case access, several participants warned against exposing sensitive criminal documents without careful whitelisting. Tyler said two criminal-pilot integrations (Denton and FAIR) showed that a straightforward public-document whitelist is technically difficult without a robust set of per‑event rules; the committee asked staff to pause broad criminal-document display until standards can better define permitted document types.

The committee also discussed data standardization: inconsistent dropdown menus and local naming conventions across counties make statewide reporting and analytics difficult. John Warren (speaker 10) urged use of a living access/metadata matrix that clarifies what each dropdown selection means so reports are comparable across jurisdictions.

Members directed follow-up work on several fronts: (1) confirm whether the 10.1 draft (sent previously by Casey) was formally published and, if not, prepare a revised submission adding the summary-judgment filing types; (2) troubleshoot Research Texas notifications and county integrations by collecting examples of attorneys and cases that are not receiving notices; (3) convene criminal and clerks’ stakeholders to define whitelists and redaction needs for criminal documents; and (4) develop a shared matrix of data definitions and dropdown options to harmonize reporting.

Name-discrepancy note: the transcript introduces the new OCA CIO as “Frank Baker” (speaker 8) and includes a speaker turn from speaker 9 identifying himself as “Frank Parker.” The record contains both forms; the committee introduction uses “Frank Baker” when introducing the new CIO. The article reports both forms exactly as spoken and flags the inconsistency because the transcript itself contains the variance.

Formal actions recorded in the meeting minutes included adoption of the September 2025 minutes (motion moved by speaker 2 and seconded by John Warren, speaker 10) and the committee consensus to proceed with updating the standards to add summary-judgment filing types (motion made on the record and supported during the meeting). The committee set follow-up items for staff and scheduled a deeper justice-court briefing on JP e-filing for the next meeting cycle.

The meeting closed after the chair summarized next steps and noted planned dates for future meetings.