SOAH Closure for Thanksgiving Holiday November 22-24, 2023
All SOAH offices will be closed in observance of the Thanksgiving Holiday from Wednesday, November 22 through Friday, November 24, 2023. SOAH will reopen for regular business at 8am on Monday, November 27, 2023.
General Hearing Date Assignments are set by the ALJ
September 6, 2022 – Referring agencies are reminded that hearing dates for most general docket hearings are now being set and confirmed by order of the presiding administrative law judge (ALJ). This change was previously announced on July 26, 2022. For more information, read the full announcement.
eFile Texas for SOAH Driver’s License Hearings
Please review SOAH’s Interim Operating and Transition Plan for more information.
New Public Case File Search
SOAH is now using re:SearchTX as its online tool for searching general docket case files.
Announcements
MOVEit Secure File Transfers
Although news reports indicate that other governmental entities in the U.S. experienced security breaches affecting customer information, SOAH uses a version of MOVEit that was deliberately taken off-line during these attacks to protect customer data while security patches were deployed. Forensic investigations also indicate the cluster of servers where SOAH-related file transfers reside was not affected by the staged exploit.
All versions of MOVEit Cloud have been patched for the identified vulnerabilities, and service was restored on June 16, 2023. MOVEit has not observed any signs of malicious activity since service was restored.
Interim Operating and Transition Plan
All referring agencies and participants in hearings at SOAH are encouraged to read and familiarize themselves with SOAH’s Interim Operating and Transition Plan, as it includes important information about current operations at SOAH.
General Hearing Date Assignments are set by the ALJ
This practice recognizes the ALJ’s authority over hearing and prehearing matters and makes the scheduling of cases more similar to district court. The change is necessary to promote efficiency, assure the fair and equal treatment of parties, and minimize disruptions associated with ALJs having to reschedule cases after the initial docketing of a case.
This is a change from the prior practice where hearing dates were often confirmed by the SOAH Chief Clerk’s Office during the initial referral of a case, regardless of whether an ALJ was actually available on the date requested by the referring agency.
General Order Relating to Submission of Exhibits
April 20, 2022 -- The Chief Administrative Law Judge has issued a General Order Relating to the Submission of Exhibits that affects all general docket hearings scheduled to occur May 1, 2022 or later. Consistent with SOAH’s Interim Operating and Transition Plan, the order supersedes any prior emergency/COVID-19 related orders requiring the pre-filing of exhibits 10-days prior the scheduled hearing date, and provides new instructions for the electronic submission and filing of exhibits.