2026 October
TXdocs has expanded its practice-area library with the addition of the Rodriguez Personal Injury and Rodriguez Civil Litigation volumes, featuring new forms based on Ronald Rodriguez’s Personal Injury Handbook. Mr. Rodriguez has over 30 years of legal experience, is double board-certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and Civil Appellate Law, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
The new Personal Injury volume currently focuses on motor vehicle accident cases, with additional personal injury topics planned for future releases. This volume contains over 600 forms, covering every stage of a case from intake to post-judgment. It brings the forms you need for your motor vehicle accident cases together in one place — so you can build your case without moving back and forth to the general Civil Litigation volume for forms that aren’t specific to motor vehicle accidents.
Comprehensive Plaintiff Intake
Gather the information you need from plaintiff clients using the intake method that works best for your practice:
- Online intake: Send your client a questionnaire and download the completed data directly into your case.
- Assemble-able intake: Enter information directly into an assembled intake during a phone or in-person client interview.
- Printable worksheet: Give clients a paper worksheet to complete and then enter their answers into the assembled intake.
Build Requests for Production, Requests for Admissions, and Interrogatories from a single discovery form. You can select the types of requests you need and even combine different request types in the same form.
The volume includes expert-drafted request options and discovery for both plaintiffs and defendants. It also includes:
- Demand letters
- Fee agreements
- Local forms
- Judgments for both bench and jury trials
- Options for in-person and online notary jurats
- Unsworn declarations automatically built into applicable forms
With the Rodriguez Personal Injury volume, TXdocs brings the forms and tools you need for your motor vehicle accident cases together in one streamlined practice area — from intake and discovery through demand letters and judgment.
Texas Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 47 changes took effect October 1.
Rule 47 requires original pleadings that assert a claim for relief to include a statement specifying the range of relief being sought. The new amendments raise the monetary thresholds for civil suits not governed by the Family Code from $250,000 to $325,000. The changes also update the monetary threshold for expedited actions under Rule 169 and conform to amendments to Texas Government Code Section 22.004(h-1).
TXdocs had already implemented these changes. Since August, attorneys using TXdocs have been able to prepare petitions and counterpetitions using the new $325,000 limits by selecting the option indicating the pleading will be filed on or after October 1.
As always, with TXdocs, your forms are ready for the updated rules before the changes take effect.
On September 26, TXdocs released an update with new forms and features to bring even more value to your subscription. Included in this update were:
Family Law:
- Broader use for provisions specific to a child over the age of 12: TXdocs now provides you more control, to allow for children who are about to turn 12 and for those you don’t have dates of birth entered
- Termination Answer: new pathway for a respondent who is a non-perpetrating, non-possessory conservator
- Orders for Parenting Apps: updated order language from OurFamily Wizard and AppClose
- Divorce Decree and Agreement Incident to Divorce: Added terms of payment for lien on property for reconstitution judgment for fraud on the community estate
- Updated PDFs from the Department of Defense (now Department of War)
- New E-filing Request for Issuance for El Paso County
- New Docket Control Order for the 225th for Bexar County
Probate:
- Updated Texas MERP Authorization and Certification
- Note: Contractor has CHANGED from Gainwell to Stellarware.
- Online submission portal is no longer available; there are new mailing and emailing addresses
- New MERP Marital Status Affidavit
Criminal Defense:
- Updated Petition for Occupational License for Cooke County
Texas does not recognize self-settled asset protection trusts
As a general rule, a settlor cannot create a trust for the settlor's own benefit, keep access to it, and still keep the settlor's creditors out. Texas codifies that rule in Texas Property Code § 112.035(d): when the settlor is also a beneficiary, a spendthrift provision does not stop the settlor's creditors from reaching the settlor's interest in the trust.Some other states have enacted statutes allowing a settlor to create a trust for themselves that may be protected from creditors. Those statutes reflect those states' policy choices. Texas has not adopted that approach, and a self-settled protective trust runs against Texas public policy.
Where a domestic asset protection trust is the desired goal for a Texas client, that planning is done under a different state's laws. That generally means a trust sited in that state with a trustee located there. Drafting software that offers these trusts builds them under those states' statutes, not Texas law, which places them outside a library built for Texas practice.
The bottom line
TXdocs builds forms that work under Texas law. Because § 112.035(d) would leave a self-settled trust's assets reachable by the settlor's creditors, we have not added one to the library.For clients whose goals are probate avoidance, protecting an inheritance for the next generation, shifting assets out of a married couple's estate, or Medicaid eligibility, TXdocs has a form ready today. We welcome your questions and suggestions as we continue to build our forms library.
To read more about this topic, check out our latest blog entry.
Join TXdocs Civil Litigation expert Ronald Rodriguez for a free webinar on Thursday, October 15 at 12:00 PM covering the newly amended Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 166a, with practical guidance for handling summary judgments in personal injury cases.
What you’ll take away:
The new timeline - Understand the updated deadlines for responses, replies, hearings, and rulings.
Stronger strategy - Explore evidence, objections, preservation of error, and offensive summary judgment tactics.
Ethics in practice - Learn how competence with the new procedural requirements and candor in presenting evidence apply to your practice.
Whether you regularly handle summary judgments or want to be prepared for the new requirements, this webinar will give you practical tools to put Rule 166a into practice.
This course has been approved for 1.0 hour of Ethics CLE credit. To register, click here or below.
Since launching our beta in August, we’ve made significant progress on the next generation of TXdocs. From a refreshed interface and improved navigation to enhanced Family Law tools, easier case management, and more convenient eFiling status updates, we’re continuing to refine the experience based on real-world use and feedback.
We’ve also resolved reported issues, improved tablet support, added WordPerfect file uploads, and refreshed the Tools menu. New videos on our YouTube channel cover a variety of topics related to our beta test, including 5 TXdocs Tips to Save You Hours of Drafting and Using the Heirship Tree, helping you get the most out of the new platform.
Coming Soon: 200 More Firms! On October 26, we’ll expand the beta to 200 additional firms. Want to participate? Get on the list now! This expansion is open to TXdocs Basic and Standard subscribers. TXdocsPlus subscribers aren’t eligible for this round, but we’re working on a separate beta for TXdocsPlus. We'll also have a webinar shortly before the October 26 expansion to tell new beta users everything they need to know about this version of TXdocs.
Thank you to our beta participants for helping us build a better TXdocs. Your feedback is helping shape the future of legal document automation.
Senior Developer
Daniel Dorantes joined the TXdocs team in January 2026 as a Senior Developer, bringing nearly three decades of programming experience and a security background that sets him apart. Daniel has been instrumental in the development of our Beta program, as well as answering subscriber support calls.
Before his software career, Daniel spent six years on active duty in the Air Force, stationed in Alaska and Texas, doing network management for half of it and network security auditing for the other half.
The Air Force was familiar ground — he grew up an Air Force brat with both parents in the service. By the time he enlisted he had already lived in Turkey, Japan, England, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Nebraska.
Daniel found his passion for programming at 15 and has been at it ever since. He spent much of his career as a Senior Architect in the manufacturing and third-party logistics space, designing warehouse management and transportation systems and building the integrations that connect them to enterprise ERP platforms for national telecom and electronics companies. He came to TXdocs wanting to point that experience at software people use directly. Daniel says "I've built a lot of systems that run behind the scenes. I wanted to work on something where the customer is right there on the other side of it."
Daniel has two grown children — a daughter, 26, and a son, 24 — and five grandkids between the ages of 1 and 6.
In Daniel's own words, "Outside of work you'll find me out with my girlfriend, keeping up the family property, gaming, or programming something for fun."
As a refresher, "FormZ" (pronounced "form-zee") is what TXdocs calls our proprietary software to track subscriber requests for new forms, fixes, or improvements.
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