Inadmissible: Board Certification Requirements

To keep up with the times, the Texas Board of Legal Specialization has proposed changes to the requirements to get certified in six of the 21 legal specialty areas. The proposed changes, currently out for public comment, would change requirements for certification in civil appellate law, criminal appellate law, health law, immigration and nationality law, and oil, gas and mineral law. “We try to keep up with what’s going on in the practice of law, and there are certain realities that require us to change our requirements, otherwise no one will be board-certified—or very few people,” said Hal Moorman, TBLS chairman. “What we are trying to look at is: What is realistic for someone who practices in the area?” The most extensive changes would be to the oil, gas and mineral law certification requirements. Among other things, there are changes and additions to the task requirements that make lawyers list their work in different categories. The changes would require a lawyer to list matters he handled dealing with hydraulic fracturing, seismic operations, horizontal drilling and more. “There are different drilling techniques now that were not previously used. … I think probably even if there wasn’t a quote-unquote ‘boom’ right now, then the standards probably would have been changed to reflect these things,” said TBLS’s executive director, Gary McNeil. Among changes to the other specialty area requirements, those applying for certification in immigration and nationality law, under the proposal, would have to submit information about 10 petitions or applications they handled in the past three years. Three of those applications would have to deal with employment status. “This is an aspect of the practice in which there is a lot of activity, and an applicant should accordingly have experience in it,” explained the proposal. People can send public comments to [email protected], said McNeil.

Unaccompanied Minor Education

The Texas Supreme Court’s Children’s Commission would be busy helping judges learn how to handle the thousands of unaccompanied minor cases if a lawmaker’s new bill passes the Texas Legislature. Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houston, filed House Bill 1439 to call upon the children’s commission to publish an educational guide to help judges determine jurisdiction and understand how to preside over cases involving children who are eligible for special immigrant juvenile status. Unaccompanied minors from countries not touching the U.S. border are eligible for SIJS, a status for children who were abused, neglected or abandoned in their countries. State courts must conduct a hearing and issue findings as the first step of a child applying for SIJS. Federal immigration courts make the final decision. Hernandez’s bill would require the educational guide to include information on federal SIJS law; state court jurisdiction over SIJS cases; definitions under Texas law of abuse, neglect and abandonment; and the findings that courts must make in the cases. Hernandez, an attorney with Carrigan, McCloskey & Roberson in Houston, is a member of the House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee, which would likely hold a public hearing on the SIJS education bill.

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