Protective Orders
If you have received material labeled CONFIDENTIAL, ATTORNEY'S EYES ONLY, or otherwise in one of the cases below, read and understand the Protective Order from that case first, and sign the Agreement to be Bound if you are not a Party to the case, sending it to an attorney for a Party, or to legal@herzlaw.com.
Report lost or improperly disclosed material by contacting Herz Law, 214-745-4567, legal@herzlaw.com, to make a report immediately.
If you are uncertain of your obligations under the Protective Order, you may speak to an attorney at Herz Law, or you may retain your own attorney. We are not your attorney in that connection should you speak with us: we are acting as an officer of the Court in ensuring compliance with the Order.
Herz Law represents clients in some cases in which the Court has entered a Confidential Discovery Protective Order. These Orders are designed to add safeguards to the exchange of confidential and sensitive material in discovery, without that material being disclosed to unauthorized persons.
These Protective Orders govern the Parties to the suit, including Herz Law's clients, and in most cases, the Parties are required to educate potential recipients of discovery material of the existence of the relevant Protective Order in their case, and obtain a signed Agreement to be Bound before that person can handle material, assuming the Order allows that person to handle that material, based on how it has been designated (labeled).
Doe Families I–XII v. Celina Independent School District and William Caleb Elliott, No. 471-08453-2025 (471st Dist., Collin Cnty., Tex.).
On February 25, 2026, the Court entered a Protective Order in this case. The unsigned Order is here, and will be replaced when the signed Order is available.
Obvious labelling standard
The Protective Order in this case encourages the Parties "to develop a standard visual form of Labelling that communicates to even an unintended recipient of Discovery Material that public dissemination is illegal on pain of contempt of this Court, and which links to an online copy of this Protective Order..." Prot. Ord. ¶ 16. Below are the designs proposed by Plaintiffs, which link to this page. They may be used by any person producing Discovery Material in this case, whether a Party or Non-Party, wishing to protect the Material they produce. There are two designations in this case:
Confidential Label (click to download)
Meaning:† information that...is not already public, but is private and not a matter of public concern, which would cause the Designating Party undue harassment, embarrassment, exposure, stigma, harm, injury to a pecuniary interest...or injury to a penal interest. Prot. Ord. ¶ 17(a).
Duties: everyone allowed to see Confidential information, except the Court, its personnel, and attorneys of record, must first sign the Agreement to be Bound and submit it to an attorney of record.
Examples: Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like phone numbers, emails, SSNs, driver's license or ID, date of birth, addresses, employment/
Limitations:
- ✅ electronic service
- ❌ electronic filing
- ✅ in camera tender to judge
- ✅ in-person proffer to judge as exhibit
- ✅ file under seal
- ❌ electronic inclusion as exhibit in motion marked as sensitive
Who can see:
- ✅ the Court, its personnel, jurors, or the venire (potential jurors)
- ✅ attorneys of record for the Parties and their firms' support staff
- ✅ the prior author, recipient, or possessor of that information
- ✅ legal support labor like court reporters, videographers, exhibit assistants, records retrieval, copy shops
- ✅ consulting labor like jury consultants, mediators, or other experts
- ❌ the employees, agents, or affiliates of a Receiving Party
- ✅ focus groups/mock jurors never residing in Celina, Texas
- ❌ focus groups/mock jurors ever residing in Celina, Texas
- ✅ fact witnesses (without harassing a Party's associations)
- ✅ the Parties individually
- ✅ attorneys for related complainants with leave of Court
- ❌ everyone else, the general public, journalists
Attorney's Eyes Only (AEO) Label (click to download)
Meaning:† at least as controlled and governed as, the Confidential Classification...but is further strictly limited to necessary purposes of this Suit and governed by more restrictive data protection requirements. Prot. Ord. ¶ 17(b).
Examples: information so sensitive that it cannot be adequately protected by merely marking it as CONFIDENTIAL. This automatically includes, without labelling, intimate visual material as alleged in this suit (i.e., naked photographs).
Limitations:
- ❌ electronic service
- ❌ electronic filing
- ✅ in camera tender to judge
- ❌ in-person proffer to judge as exhibit (until adequately sealed or protected)
- ✅ file under seal (not electronically)
- ❌ electronic inclusion as exhibit in motion marked as sensitive
Who can see:
- ✅ the Court, its personnel, jurors, or the venire (potential jurors)
- ✅ attorneys of record for the Parties if not intimate visual material
- ❌ other attorneys and support staff at the attorneys of record's firm
- ❌ attorneys other than the attorney of record for the depicted Party if intimate visual material
- ✅ the minor depicted Party's parents if intimate visual material
- ✅ anyone with whom the depicted Party or their parents opts to share the intimate visual material (with written consent of anyone else depicted)
- ❌ the prior author, recipient, or possessor of that information
- ✅ necessary legal support labor like court reporters, videographers, exhibit assistants, records retrieval, copy shops
- ❌ outside print shops if intimate visual material
- ✅ consulting labor like jury consultants, mediators, or other experts
- ❌ the employees, agents, or affiliates of a Receiving Party
- ❌ focus groups/mock jurors
- ❌ fact witnesses
- ❌ the Parties individually
- ✅ attorneys for related complainants with leave of Court
- ❌ everyone else, the general public, journalists
AEO Material requires following extra data protection and security measures given on pages 11–12 of the Protective Order. You may never electronically file, serve, or email in unencrypted form the AEO material. You may never leave it sitting out on a table or in plain view. It must remain physically under lock and key, and digitally, only accessible to those given above.
† this is a synopsis only and not a substitute for reading the Protective Order. It does not include all the procedures for Designating, Labelling, or challenging the designation of material. If you are a non-party required to produce information in response to a subpoena, you need to read and understand the Order fully, or have an attorney do so for you. This is not legal advice to you as your attorney, but undertaken in performance of our duty to explain the Protective Order, to ensure compliance with it as officers of the Court.