The six basic steps to creating an electronic brief that complies with the electronic filing rules for Texas Apellate Courts:

1. Convert your brief from the original word processing document, such as Word or WordPerfect, directly to PDF (do not scan the brief to create a PDF);
2. Convert any appendix materials to PDF (do not scan materials that are available in electronic format (e.g. court opinions, statutes, rules, etc.);
3. Make any scanned appendix materials searchable using Optical Character Recognication (OCR) software like Adobe Acrobat;
4. Combine the brief and any appendix materials together into one computer file;
5. Create bookmarks for any documents contained in an appendix; and
6. Redact any information that must be redacted under the rules (e.g. social security numbers, minors' names, bank account numbers, etc).

For a downloadable and comprehensive guide to include a breakdown of the steps listed above along with illustrations, click here.

Please note that criminal cases can be electronically filed to the Appellate Courts. You can eFile into established cases, even if the case was initially filed in paper form.

CaseFileXpress Launches eFiling to Texas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals