The Court has a private conference scheduled today. As always, cases decided or petitions granted should be noted on Friday’s regular order list.

Articles from the Past Week

• I mentioned two new features of the blog for court-watchers. One is a “Cases in the News” feed tracking news stories, articles, and posts on other blogs that mention Texas Supreme Court cases. You can use this in the sidebar or subscribe by RSS.

  The other new feature, long overdue, is an email subscription option for the blog. If you’re interested, you can subscribe in the sidebar.

• In the crush of legislation at the end of the session, the Texas Legislature may have fixed one of the vexing problems of appellate practice — the parallel appeals required in many arbitration appeals: “Legislature Streamlines Arbitration Appeals.”.

• On Friday, the Court’s regular order list included opinions in six cases, one new petition granted for the fall, and a CVSG.

• A roundup of recent news stories mentioned how legal aid groups are faring after the legislative session, who is preparing for the 2010 elections, and a recent decision by the Third Court about open records that (through a quirk of timing) was overruled by the Legislature two days later.