Room to Breathe: How Harris County District Courts Have Responded to an Easing Backlog

Following the introduction of new judicial districts, Houston, Texas’ civil case backlog dropped significantly in 2025. Across several key pretrial motions in civil cases, Harris County District Court judges ruled far more quickly in 2025 than in 2023 and 2024, with substantial reductions in time from filing to order.

Table 1: Median days from case filing to order on motion

According to the Harris County District Courts’ Civil District Courts Dashboard, fewer cases were pending throughout Harris County District Courts in 2025 compared to the previous year. That followed three consecutive years of growth in the court’s civil case backlog.

For most, this turnaround is a story of success. Pandemic-era court closures and other impacts on judicial resources caused Houston’s case backlog to spiral out of control. In February 2025, the Harris County District Courts asked the Texas Legislature for help.

Lawmakers responded with SB 2878, authorizing five new district courts in Harris County, each directed to prioritize civil matters as part of a broader effort to relieve pressure on the system. The 513th, 514th, and 515th Judicial Districts became effective on October 1, 2025. The 516th and 517th Judicial Districts are set to open on October 1, 2026. See “Expansion Of Harris County District Courts”, Mondaq.com (Sept. 30, 2025).

This expansion in Harris County District Court resources followed the state’s 2024 launch of specialized business courts for complex commercial disputes. By increasing civil district court capacity by roughly 20 percent, those new courts were expected to reduce per-judge caseloads, accelerate the resolution of business disputes, and shorten wait times overall. See id.; “Update on the newly established Texas Business Court”, Charles River Associates CRA Insights (Feb. 25, 2025).

New Outlook on Lawsuits?

With Houston’s court dockets easing for the first time in years, an obvious question follows: Are judges approaching civil cases differently now that they have more room to breathe?

Across several key pretrial motions in civil cases, data from Lex Machina®, the LexisNexis® Legal Analytics® platform, suggest that judges’ 2025 rulings more closely resembled pre-Covid practices than the pandemic-era period marked by heavy court backlogs.

Early Relief More Often

In 2025, Harris County district judges were significantly more likely to grant requests for early injunctive relief compared to any year since 2019.

Table 2: Motions for Temporary Restraining Order, Harris County District Courts (2019-2025)

This is perhaps because judges had the capacity to consider those motions when early relief would still be timely and effective. As shown in Table 1 (above), most TROs in Houston took more than 20 days to resolve in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, judges issued decisions within days in most cases.

Table 3: Motions for Preliminary Injunction, Harris County District Courts (2019-2025)

It was a different story for defendants’ requests for early wins in Houston in 2025. 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.

Table 4: Motions to Dismiss (Contested), Harris County District Courts (2019-2025)

Don’t Dilly Dally

With less need for intense “legal triage,” Houston judges in 2025 were less inclined than in prior years to grant lawyers additional leeway when requested. For motions to extend time, grant rates fell significantly year-over-year.

Table 5: Motions to Extend Time, Harris County District Courts (2019-2025)

The same was true of motions to continue, with Houston judges less willing in 2025 to push out their cases.

Table 6: Motions to Continue, Harris County District Courts (2019-2025)

The shifting caseloads of the Harris County District Courts have implications for both practitioners and parties across all cases, whether newly filed or long pending. For advanced insights into lawsuits throughout federal courts, Harris County, and hundreds of other state courts, practitioners can turn to Lex Machina for the latest analytics.