“I thought I knew what it was like to be a trial judge. And the truth is, I didn’t,” says Justice Scott Field of the Fifteenth Court of Appeals, back for his second visit to the show after first joining for Episode 6 in 2020. After leaving private practice to serve as the inaugural judge
“In a lot of respects, the legal system is a moral ordering system,” says Jody Sanders—one built on competing interests and an outcomes-based way of measuring success that, he argues, rarely tells the whole story. In this episode, Jody and Todd Smith explore a concept most lawyers have felt but never had a word
An attorney-fee award can sometimes dwarf the underlying recovery—yet, as Amy Prueger says, a party’s fee request is often an afterthought. Hosts Todd Smith and Jody Sanders talk with Amy, a litigation attorney at Clark Hill PLC in Austin, about her recent paper “Taming the Fee Dragon: Attorney’s Fees Recovery” and her ongoing
“Give yourself time, give yourself options.” That refrain runs through this conversation as hosts Jody Sanders and Todd Smith break down what has changed in Texas supersedeas, the procedure for suspending a judgment during appeal. Drawing on Jody’s Appellate Advocate article, “The Name’s Bonds, Supersedeas Bonds,” they cover the four ways to supersede a Texas
The real AI risk isn’t hallucinations—it’s not using AI at all. That’s the counterintuitive argument from Ross Guberman, founder and CEO of BriefCatch, who tells hosts Todd Smith and Jody Sanders that lawyers ignoring AI may be approaching malpractice territory. BriefCatch now contains roughly 16,000 editing rules, up from about 10,000 in 2021. Ross
Wallace Jefferson, former Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court and newly installed President of the American Law Institute (ALI), joins Jody Sanders and Todd Smith for a wide-ranging conversation on appellate practice, judicial leadership, and legacy. Chief Justice Jefferson, a partner at Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP, discusses ALI’s mission to modernize
Opposing counsel once called Chris Schandevel a “brief-writing ninja.” He took it as a compliment. Years later, as he considered ways to add value to attorneys coming up behind him, Chris channeled that nickname into a side job: Brief-Writing Ninja, his training platform to help lawyers improve their writing skills. Why? Because good writing
“We have just anything you could think of,” Amy Small says of the Texas State Law Library, where she is executive director. Open to all—no attorney license required—the library serves everyday Texans and the Supreme Court alike. In this episode, hosts Jody Sanders and Todd Smith invite Amy to unpack the library’s often-overlooked resources:
Election law in Texas is “very demanding” and “stressful because of the accelerated nature of the calendar,” says Elizabeth D. Alvarez. Elizabeth is head of civil litigation/election litigation at Guest & Gray and a 12-year election litigation practitioner who has represented state parties, national parties, and candidates on both sides of the aisle. She
Judge Amy Clark Meachum, the Local Administrative Judge for Travis County, joins hosts Todd Smith and Jody Sanders to unpack recent legislation affecting the Texas judiciary and what it means for how courts operate today. Judge Meachum traces the escalating reporting and accountability mandates imposed on Texas trial courts through the 88th and 89th