Metal detectors. Credit: Andrey Burstein/Shutterstock.com.

Updated at 4:43 p.m.

Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, has drastically changed his bill that proposes a statewide attorney card that would allow lawyers to skip long courthouse security lines across the Lone Star State.

Wu presented a committee substitute of his legislation, House Bill 1359, that—unlike the original—wouldn't let a lawyer use his regular State Bar of Texas membership card to bypass court security.

Instead, under the substitute, lawyers would apply with the Texas Bar for a brand new court access card, with the lawyer's photo on it, for use in any of Texas's 254 counties. The Texas Bar would create a committee to accept applications and vet applicants, which would include a criminal history check to be repeated annually for card  holders, explained Wu to members of the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee on April 8. Lawyers would pay a fee to cover the Texas Bar's costs in issuing the cards, and part of the fee would go back to a lawyer's home county to be spent on court security.

“We're just saying attorneys are trusted individuals. We are already screened by the bar once and continuously monitored by the bar,” Wu said.

Wu noted that some smaller counties already allow lawyers to bypass security simply by showing their normal State Bar card, and his bill would not stop that process. However, many other counties have individualized applications and access cards–which this statewide card would replace.

Representatives of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and Texas Lawyers Group testified in favor of the bill, but witnesses from a justice-of-the peace court association and people from court systems in Dallas, Tarrant and Travis counties were opposed.

Read the newest version of HB 1359 here.

Original story from 9:43 a.m.

If a lawyer practicing through Texas wishes to avoid long courthouse security lines, there's a lot of paperwork involved.

Each of the state's 254 counties has its own rules for lawyers to apply for an identification card that lets them skip metal detectors.

There's got to be a better way.

Under House Bill 1359, which is getting a public hearing on Monday, any licensed lawyer in Texas would be able to skip courthouse security simply by showing their State Bar of Texas membership cards.

The bill by Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, would do away with the county-specific identification cards that lawyers currently must obtain to get into justice courts, municipal courts, county courts, county courts-at-law or district courts. Their state bar membership card would be all that's required across Texas.

HB 1359 also says that no county would be able to adopt rules or enforce orders that conflicted with the bill's provisions.

State bar president-elect Randy Sorrels campaigned on a promise to institute a statewide courthouse security badge. Last fall, the bar convened a task force to determine how to make it happen. Sorrels told Texas Lawyer at the time that a statewide badge would make it more efficient for lawyers to go to court, and it would save them money that they're currently paying for county-specific IDs, which can add up when a lawyer needs badges in multiple counties.

State bar spokesman Lowell Brown noted that HB 1359 is not part of the bar's legislative agenda.

Monday's hearing before the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee begins bright and early at 8 a.m.