Tex. Health & Safety Code § 574.003

APPOINTMENT OF ATTORNEY

Known as the Texas Mental Health Code

The act spans §§ 571–580 (237 sections).

Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Gibson v. Tolbert (2003)

Most recently applied in Assignees of Best Buy v. Combs (February 2013)

Added by Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 76, Sec. 1, eff

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) The judge shall appoint an attorney to represent a proposed patient within 24 hours after the time an application for court-ordered mental health services is filed if the proposed patient does not have an attorney. At that time, the judge shall also appoint a language or sign interpreter if necessary to ensure effective communication with the attorney in the proposed patient's primary language.

(b) The court shall inform the attorney in writing of the attorney's duties under Section 574.004.

(c) The proposed patient's attorney shall be furnished with all records and papers in the case and is entitled to have access to all hospital and physicians' records.

Official source: Texas Constitution and Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Texas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.