Drafting Your Own Court Documents

Many common Texas pleadings, motions, and orders are available as pre-drafted forms or templates. But TexasLawHelp does not have forms for every legal situation. If you are representing yourself and cannot find a form that fits your needs, you may have to create your own court documents.

Law libraries often have collections of legal form templates, although the templates are often intended for lawyers. Use the State Law Library Locator Tool to locate the nearest law library.

The names of the main types of court documents may vary depending on the type of case. However, all lawsuits require certain basic legal documents. These typically fall into these categories:

1. Documents needed to start the lawsuit (petitions or complaints)
2. The defendant’s response to the lawsuit (answer).
3. A request that a party makes to the judge for a ruling or an order on a particular point (motions).
4. Other important supporting documents (such as affidavits).
5. Decisions issued by a court (orders).
6. Miscellaneous papers (such as statements of inability to pay costs).

Go to your local law library. Most Texas public law libraries provide access to commercial electronic legal databases. Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis are two of the more common databases provided by these libraries. In each of these databases, there is a "forms" database that supplies templated forms for common pleadings.

Note: When looking through commercial databases, make sure that Texas law is applied to your search. You can do this by narrowing your search by state and topic. Law libraries can help you find trainings about how to use commercial legal research services.

Law libraries also provide print copies of legal texts that have features like commentaries on the law and pre-drafted templates for certain pleadings. For example, the Texas Family Law Practice Manual includes more than 700 legal form templates to you can adapt when you are drafting legal documents.

TexasBarCLE, though intended for Texas attorneys, offers legal education, including form examples and templates.

The Texas Justice Court Training Center also offers many templates for small claims, debt collection, and eviction suits.

Most court records are public record. This means that you can search at your local clerk's office for completed copies of the pleading you are looking for. To find the clerk's office, check your county's official website.

One way to find court documents that have been filed is Re:Search Texas, which is a service created to give you access to public court records online. Use Re:Search Texas to find similar pleadings and document structures.

Pleadings are written documents that explain each side’s claims in a lawsuit. Pleadings tell the court what each side wants and why. The plaintiff or petitioner (the person who starts the case) uses pleadings to explain their reasons for suing. The defendant or respondent (the person being sued) uses pleadings to explain their defenses.

Pleadings must be written clearly and concisely, such that the court and the other side understand what the party wants. Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 45(b).

Do not file pleadings unless your claims are supported by facts or valid legal arguments.

Motions are a request for a judge to issue an order or make a ruling on a certain matter within the case.

All motions must:

• Be in writing, unless made during a hearing or trial;
• State with particularity the grounds for seeking the order; and
• State the relief that you are seeking.

Court orders are decisions or directives that a court issues as part of a civil case. A court order can require a party to act or refrain from acting in a certain matter. Failure to obey a court order can result in penalties, sanctions, or contempt. Sometimes you must provide the court with a draft order to sign.

Under Rules 47 and 57 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, all pleadings (original petitions, counterclaims, crossclaims, or third-party claims) require the following:

• A short statement of the cause of action to give fair notice of the claim involved.
• A statement that the damages sought are within the jurisdiction of the court;
• A statement that the party requests either:
  • monetary relief of $250,000 or less and attorney fees and costs;
  • monetary relief of $250,000 or less and non-monetary relief;
  • monetary relief over $250,000 but not more than $1,000,000;
  • monetary relief over $1,000,000; or
  • only non-monetary relief (i.e., injunction, protective order)
• A demand for judgment on the relief requested; and
• For self-represented litigants: your signature, address, telephone number, email address, and (if available) your fax number.

A motion should be formatted as follows:

• Caption: The nature of the motion (for example, Defendant, John Doe, moves for sanctions against plaintiff, Jane Doe, for filing groundless pleadings in violation of Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code section 9.011).

• Introduction: A brief introduction of the parties, the basis of the suit, and the relief sought.

• Background: A brief statement of the facts that are relevant to the motion.
• Argument and Authorities: A statement of the law that supports the request, and an application of the law to the facts of your case.
• Conclusion: A brief summary of the motion
• Prayer: A statement of the ruling that you are requesting the court makes.

A court order should be formatted as follows:

[Heading]

• ORDER ON [Party]'s MOTION FOR [NAME OF MOTION]

After considering [party name]'s [name of motion]

• [Include from below the applicable statements]:
• and the response
• the response, and the evidence on file
• the response, the evidence on file, and arguments of counsel
• the response, and arguments of counsel
• the response, and arguments of counsel, and after receiving evidence in open court.

The Court

• DENIES the motion; or
• GRANTS the motion and [identify the relief requested in the motion]

Signature

• Signed on ____, 20__.
• _________________.
  PRESIDING JUDGE

Texas courts have strict rules regarding the redaction and protection of private data. Redaction is the removal of sensitive items of text in publicly filed documents. Read Sensitive Data to learn how to redact and protect sensitive information.

“Redacting” is modifying a document to have all confidential and sensitive information taken out of it. You can redact information by blacking it out with a redacting tool in your PDF software, blacking it out with the letter x, or removing the sensitive information and writing "REDACTED" in parentheses or brackets where the sensitive information was. See our article on sensitive data to learn more about redaction.

The court you're in might have its own formatting rules. Local Rules explains how to find the rules that specific courts require. In Texas, appeals courts have their own very specific formatting rules, for example, which can be found in the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure.

If you write your own memorandum or brief, you may need to know about how to correctly cite the law. The Indigo Book is a free online legal citation manual.