When must Texas written interrogatories be served?

Establish the discovery endpoint and any order limiting requests or their completion.

Identify the receiving party and actual written questions.

Check the Rule 197.1 scope and applicable plan limits before serving the set.

1. Establish the discovery endpoint and any order limiting requests or their completion.
2. The latest ordinary service interval runs thirty days before discovery closes. It does not run from trial or the interrogatory drafting date. Rule 197.2(a)’s later written-response clock runs from proper service and has its own branches.
3. Read any signed order and establish the actual required act, recipients and completion method.
4. Check closed days without silently shortening the required interval.

These periods exceed five days, so Rule 4’s exclusion of intermediate Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays for short periods does not apply. Do not move a latest date forward toward trial, a hearing or discovery closure merely because the nominal date is closed. That can leave less than the required lead time. Check Rule 4, the controlling order and actual court calendar. This source guide applies no automatic backward closed-day adjustment and supplies no computed last date.

Complete actual service under the applicable rule. Rule 21a distinguishes permitted service methods from filing. Electronic service completes on transmission to the serving party’s electronic filing service provider. Fax received after 5 p.m. in the recipient’s time zone is deemed served the next day. The three-day qualifying-mail addition in Rule 21a(c) concerns a prescribed period after service, not an automatic addition to a backward trial or discovery limit. Preserve recipients, method and completion evidence.

The isolated backward date does not establish the controlling endpoint, permissible questions, plan limits or a resolved closed-day last date. This guide explains the ordinary service limit without publishing a calculated result.

No expert-discovery substitution

Rule 197.1 excludes matters covered by Rule 195. A written interrogatory does not replace the actual expert-disclosure procedure.

Contention questions and proof

Rule 197.1 permits specific legal or factual contentions and general factual bases, but forbids requiring a party to marshal all available proof or intended trial proof.

Discovery-plan limits

Read the applicable Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3 plan for interrogatory number limits and any court modifications. A date alone does not establish compliance with them.

Response and verification differ

Rule 197.2 separately addresses response timing, the Family Code early-service fifty-day branch, content, the conditional records option and required sworn answers. Request service is not response completion.

• This guide does not establish the actual discovery endpoint, hearing or trial setting, service validity, court calendar or terms of an order.
• A timing explanation does not establish discovery compliance or permission to take the requested action.

• Establish the discovery endpoint and any order limiting requests or their completion.
• Identify the receiving party and actual written questions.
• Check the Rule 197.1 scope and applicable plan limits before serving the set.
• Rule 197.1 excludes matters covered by Rule 195. A written interrogatory does not replace the actual expert-disclosure procedure.
• Rule 197.1 permits specific legal or factual contentions and general factual bases, but forbids requiring a party to marshal all available proof or intended trial proof.
• Read the applicable Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3 plan for interrogatory number limits and any court modifications. A date alone does not establish compliance with them.
• Rule 197.2 separately addresses response timing, the Family Code early-service fifty-day branch, content, the conditional records option and required sworn answers. Request service is not response completion.
• Properly serve the written interrogatories under Rule 21a and serve discovery material on all parties of record under Rule 191.5. Preserve each actual question and completion evidence. Rule 191.4 ordinarily excludes the party request from filing, subject to stated exceptions. Timely service does not establish that the interrogatories comply with their scope and number limits.