Document Delivery
The State Law Library accepts requests for legal information and copies of material in our collection. Requests are subject to copyright restrictions. Turnaround time depends on the size of the request and librarian availability.
Court Records
The library can only provide copies of certain records from the following courts:
- the Texas Supreme Court
- the Court of Criminal Appeals
- the 3rd Court of Appeals (criminal records only)
Copies of court records may take longer depending on the availability of the files.
The library cannot copy exhibit files from the 3rd Court of Appeals and the Court of Criminal Appeals. To obtain exhibits from these courts, you will need to contact the court directly. We cannot facilitate or assist you with this process. You may also contact the trial court directly.
Delivery Options
Copies can be picked up in person, mailed, or faxed upon request. Depending on the nature and size of your request, the library may also be able to send files as e-mail attachments.
Due to network restrictions, we can only send attachments that are at most 10 MB in size. Your e-mail provider may have a lower attachment size limit. You will need to verify with your e-mail provider that you can receive a file up to 10 MB in size prior to your purchase.
The library is not responsible for returned e-mails or e-mails that bounce. If you are not able to receive a file we send and would like to receive the files another way, you may incur additional charges — e.g., postage, printing, a flash drive.
Certified Copies
The library can provide certified copies of Texas statutes. We certify that the copies we provide are faithful reproductions of the law as it appears in our collection.
In Texas, there is no state agency designated as the official “custodian” of the state’s compiled statutes. This means we cannot and do not certify the accuracy or authenticity of the contents of the copies. Our certification states that the copy we provide is a true and correct copy of a book in the library’s collection or of a law that was downloaded from Westlaw and printed by a librarian.
When you contact the library, provide the following information:
- The specific sections or chapters of the Texas statutes you are requesting;
- If you are requesting a prior version of a law, the effective date; and
- Mailing address, if copies are not picked up in person.
About the Library's Certified Copies
Because there is no “legal custodian” of the compiled Texas statutes, people can be unsure where to turn to get a certified copy of a law.
Our copies are certified as faithful reproductions from our collection. We cannot and do not certify the accuracy or authenticity of the contents of the copies. Our certification states that the copy we provide is a true and correct copy of a book in the library’s collection or of a law that was downloaded from Westlaw and printed by a librarian. Westlaw is a product of Thomson Reuters, an unofficial publisher of the Texas statutes. Westlaw includes the electronic version of the printed statutes.
For example, we may provide certified copies from a volume of Vernon's Texas Statutes and Codes Annotated. We certify they were “copied from the Texas State Law Library’s copy of the publication.” The certification would not say that the wording of the original document was accurate.
The Secretary of State can provide certified copies of legislative bills and resolutions. These bills and resolutions are not the final version of the codified statutes. They are the product of a legislative session and must be combined with the previous text of the statutes to arrive at the current text.
Likewise, there is no official publisher of the compiled Texas statutes, either electronically or in print. Section 2051.152 of the Government Code names official electronic publishers of the state constitution and legislative bills. It does not do the same for the compiled statutes. In 1987, the state legislature proposed a bill (Senate Bill 664) which could have made Vernon’s Texas Statutes and Codes Annotated the official print version of the Texas statutes. That proposal was unsuccessful, and thus there is not an official printed version of the compiled statutes. Vernon’s remains an unofficial published version.
Fees
All requests are subject to:
- Service charge of $5
- Sales tax
- Postage fees, if mailed
- Requests over 500 pages incur additional $5 service charges
In addition, the following fees apply.
| Type of document | Fee |
|---|---|
| Photocopies | $0.25 per page |
| Print documents scanned to e-mail (up to 10 MB file size but never more than 50 scanned pages) | $0.25 per page |
| Printed copy of an electronic document | $0.25 per page |
| Digital court record (no scanning involved) | $5 per record |
| Faxed documents | $0.50 per page |
| Certification of copies (limited to Texas statutes in our collection) | $25 plus price of copies |
Payment is due at the time of service. The library accepts cash, personal checks, cashier's checks, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express.