Welcome to The State Office of Administrative Hearings
Houston Office Resumes Normal Operations
July 15, 2024 – SOAH’s Houston office has returned to normal operations this week and will be conducting hearings according to SOAH’s regular ALR Hearings Schedule and General Hearings Schedule.
SOAH To Phase Out Use of MOVEit for Case Exhibits and File Sharing
June 17, 2024 – SOAH will begin phasing out use of the MOVEit Cloud Managed File Transfer platform for the pre-hearing submission of exhibits by September 1, 2024.
April 2, 2024 – Electronic Filing Continues for Driver's License Hearings
Please see Driver’s License Hearings Filing Information and the revised Standing Order of the Chief Administrative Law Judge Regarding Administrative License Revocation Hearings for more information.
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.
New Public Case File Search
SOAH is now using re:SearchTX as its online tool for searching general docket case files.
Announcements
SOAH To Phase Out Use of MOVEit for Case Exhibits and File Sharing
June 17, 2024 – SOAH will begin phasing out use of the MOVEit Cloud Managed File Transfer platform for the pre-hearing submission of exhibits by September 1, 2024.
MOVEit will eventually be replaced with a new exhibit submission portal that will be accessible through SOAH’s public website without the need for parties to receive an invitation or create an account to upload exhibits prior to a scheduled hearing. Further information on the new exhibit submission portal is forthcoming.
Proposed Rule Changes for Driver’s License Hearings
Driver’s License Hearings Update
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.
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.
The order applies to general docket case hearings only, and does not affect procedures for the submission of exhibits in administrative driver’s license revocation cases, special education due process hearings, or exhibits for cases on written submission only.