Texas Business Court Attracts More Cases Under Lower Entry Bar

Akerman LLC’s Michael Napoli had a choice to make.

After a client secured an arbitration award in a property development dispute, the Texas-based partner needed a judge to enforce it. For the first time, he considered the state’s nascent business court as an alternative to the traditional district court system.

“Let’s go see if we have jurisdiction,” Napoli said he thought before filing in November.

The addition of arbitration agreement enforcement is one of several expansions to the Texas Business Court’s jurisdiction that went into effect Sept. 1, sparking an uptick in activity from corporate litigators. The court drew 141 new filings from September through February, a 76% year-over-year increase from the 80 cases filed in court’s first six months of operations. On average, the number of weekly filings has increased to five in year two from three in year one.

The modest increase in new cases suggests state lawmakers hit a sweet spot in maintaining a level of exclusivity without overwhelming the growing court, while collecting information that could inform additional changes when they meet again before the court’s third year.

“The current limits are the Goldilocks zone, just right,” said Cameron Byrd, a partner at Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing in Houston.

Byrd added a case to the court in September that had just become eligible because his client’s claims topped a new $5 million transaction threshold. During the business court’s first year, the amount in controversy needed to be at least $10 million for a case to qualify.

He said he recommends his clients file suits in the specialized court because “having speed and high quality attention makes a difference between four or five years to resolution versus one year.”

A Default Forum

Texas has long held itself out as a pro-business state with hands-off regulation and low corporate taxes, but it continued to look up at Delaware, it’s long-time corporate rival whose Court of Chancery is renown for its ability to resolve complicated business disputes. Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who has exclusive authority to appoint and re-appoint the court’s judges, has encouraged Delaware-incorporated companies to relocate to Texas in part because of what he views as a major piece to the puzzle in the business court.

The court, which also is now allowed to hear trade secrets disputes and long-running cases that predated its 2024 opening, has begun to show an ability to move quickly on complex cases.

Judges have quickly set motions for hearings and typically issue written opinions within a few weeks of those settings.

Of the 326 cases filed in the first year and a half, 110 are now closed and 27 abated. In February, the court held its first jury trial, then followed with two more.

Lowering the entry barriers “moves the business court from the mega-case only to a default forum for mainstream slice of Texas commercial litigation,” said Gibson Dunn’s Trey Cox, who added a trade secrets case that became eligible when the county where it was originally filed was added to the Houston division.

But the court could find itself in trouble if the increased case volume becomes too much, particularly in Houston—which has had to shed dozens of cases to less busy divisions in order to stay ahead.

Last year, the legislature rejected a plan to add a third judge in Houston, which gets about 40% of all cases, and Dallas, the second busiest division, and also pumped the brakes on activating divisions in six rural areas. Those conversations could resurface in 2027, when lawmakers are due back in Austin.

Grant Dorfman, a judge in the Houston division, said the court must continue to resolve matters quickly to maintain its credibility with the business community. Right now, parties have the luxury of getting a trial setting all to themselves, and he’d like to keep it that way.

“That is an immensely attractive feature,” Dorfman said. “Even setting two or three cases per trial setting I don’t think dooms us, but it’s a different promise than I can make right now.”

Increased Comfort

Determining how many previously-ineligible cases the court has received as a result of the reduced barriers is tricky because many of the lawsuits filed since the changes don’t provide sufficient detail to answer that question.

But 23 cases that did provide such information would have been ineligible under the previous requirements, accounting for a little under one-fifth of all new cases the court received from September 2025 to February 2026. All but five of those cases gained entry through the new $5 million threshold.

“I’d not be surprised if the additional case filings were also in part due to litigants and parties becoming more comfortable with the Texas Business Court and the way that it’s operating,” said Tom O’Brien, a Dallas-based partner at Baker Botts.

“The track record, though short, shows the court is living up to what it was created and envisioned to do,” he said.

Napoli, the lawyer in the arbitration agreement, received a final judgment within two months of the enforcement filing.

“I’m very pleased with the court,” he said, “not just because I got the result I wanted but because it was a quick, efficient, easy process.”