Lady Justice
HOUSTON — Harris County District Courts are moving more quickly as a long-running civil case backlog begins to ease, according to new findings from Lex Machina.
The study examines how legislative action, including the creation of new district courts, has altered judicial behavior and case management in Harris County.
According to the latest data, 2025 marked a clear inflection point following the creation of new judicial districts, with fewer pending cases and substantially faster rulings on several key pretrial motions than in the prior two years.
The findings show how expanded judicial capacity is reshaping litigation strategy and court operations in one of the largest and most closely watched trial court systems in the country.
For example, median time from case filing to rulings on major pretrial motions, including temporary restraining orders, summary judgment, and motions to exclude expert testimony, fell sharply in 2025 compared to 2023 and 2024.
In 2024, TRO rulings took on average 22 days, down to four days in 2025.
Harris County district judges granted TROs in roughly 80 percent of cases in 2025, the highest rate since at least 2019, reflecting faster consideration of requests for early relief. The grant rate in 2024 was 42 percent.
Grant rates for preliminary injunctions rebounded in 2025 after several years of decline, suggesting judges had greater capacity to address time-sensitive disputes. In 2025 the grant rate was 68 percent, compared to 58 percent in 2024.
Defendants also saw fewer early exits, with contested motions to dismiss denied at higher rates than in recent years.
“It was a different story for defendants’ requests for early wins in Houston in 2025,” the suit states. “In 2025, Harris County district judges denied 40 percent of contested motions to dismiss, marking the first time in years that denials reached that level.”
Judges were less inclined to grant extensions and continuances in 2025, signaling a shift away from pandemic-era leniency as docket pressure eased. 87 percent of motions were granted last year, seven percent less than the year before.
Lex Machina, a leader in legal analytics, is a LexisNexis company.
