A 2026 rule amendment by the Texas Supreme Court mandates that petitions for review begin with an introduction of no more than 1,000 words explaining why review should be granted.
At first glance, the rule seems sensible, given the hundreds of petitions that the court must promptly review every year. But that perceived benefit may be illusory. In a world shaped by generative AI and search-driven reading habits, the traditional importance of the appellate introduction is already fading.
And if the rule encourages lawyers to spend time on introductory “spin” rather than substance—which generative AI can now easily identify, organize and summarize — it could actually be counterproductive.
The main benefit of a required introduction is to give the court a quick overview of the case and the reasons review is warranted. The need for such a summary is great if the only other way to get that overview is to scour the many pages of argument that follow.
That is no longer true. Today, any justice or clerk can review a petition with a quality AI tool and generate a summary, issue list and outline in seconds. The result may lack polish, but it is fast and, if the generative AI system is handled correctly, will be reasonably objective—certainly enough for a quick orientation.
Put simply, introductions no longer save much time. A reader can now create a summary faster than it takes to read one.
At the same time, younger readers approach information differently than older ones. For many years, I had paper folders organized topically and alphabetically for all my cases. Younger lawyers and clerks who have never organized information in such away do not think in terms of filing cabinets or neat linear structure. They search for what interests them. With that audience, persuasion does not turn on a carefully staged opening narrative. It turns on what the reader finds when they go looking.
Given the realities of a modern audience, successful use of the required introduction requires a balanced approach to drafting. Spending too much time polishing a long introduction—in a time when readers increasingly bypass it with AI and search functions—raises the risk of a mismatch between the introduction and what follows. And that mismatch will be apparent to modern readers who can easily create their own summary of the petition’s substantive arguments.
Of course, AI can also help solve this problem, as it allows the author to continually check for consistency between the introduction and body of a petition. But that only underscores the broader point: The introduction is no longer the controlling feature of a legal brief.
At the start of the 1970s, the Keuffel and Esser slide rule was the top of the line. But its sales would soon collapse when electronic calculators made it obsolete. The math did not change. The bottleneck did.
The same shift is underway with appellate introductions. They still require skill to write well, and they still provide benefit as a summary and overview. But the introduction bears far less load than it once did, and it will likely matter less over time as AI tools improve and today’s clerks become tomorrow’s judges.
In response to the new rule, advocates should offer introductions that are clear, direct and restrained—long enough to do the job but no longer. The real work of persuasion remains where it has always been: in the law, the record and the reasoning. And with modern technology, that material is far more accessible than it has ever been.
David Coale is an appellate partner at Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann.