A new bill in this state would allow attorneys to skip courthouse security
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A proposed bill in Texas would provide a new security card to attorneys, so they can skip security lines in courthouses in any of the state’s 254 counties.
Texas HB 1359, introduced by Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, was passed Thursday by the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee, the Texas Lawyer reports.
Under the proposal, the State Bar of Texas would create a committee to review applications and conduct annual criminal history checks for security card holders.
Applicants would pay a fee to cover the bar association’s costs, as well as court security fees in their home county.
The Texas Lawyer reports that some Texas attorneys have taken complaints about the bill to Twitter, while in a recent poll 96 percent of members in a private Facebook group called the Texas Lawyers said they support it.
Created in 2014 by Houston mediator Andrew Tolchin of the Tolchin Law Firm in Angleton, he said 900 attorneys in the Texas Lawyers group took a poll about the bill and 96 percent of them were in favor of it.
The group has more than 12,000 members, making it the largest voluntary bar association in the state.
