2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · Senate bill

SB66

SB66 orders a study of how people with disabilities could receive help from a designated supporter during legal proceedings without losing confidentiality protections.

Read bill highlights ↓

Official caption: Relating to a study on authorizing a supporter under a supported decision-making agreement to assist an adult with a disability with legal proceedings.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists Senate author(s): Zaffirini. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

Report an error ↗

Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

SB66 orders a study of how people with disabilities could receive help from a designated supporter during legal proceedings without losing confidentiality protections.
A supported decision-making agreement lets a person with a disability choose someone to help them understand information and communicate decisions, while the person keeps decision-making authority.
The Office of Court Administration must examine the legal and ethical implications of supporter involvement in civil and criminal proceedings, including whether a supporter’s presence during legal consultations could waive attorney-client privilege or another protection.
The office may consult Disability Rights Texas, relevant State Bar sections, legal aid organizations, public defenders, judges and other experienced stakeholders.

Read the full explanation ↓

What does it do?

SB66 orders a study of how people with disabilities could receive help from a designated supporter during legal proceedings without losing confidentiality protections. It does not itself grant new authority to participate in a case or change attorney-client privilege. Signed June 20, 2025, it took effect September 1, 2025. Official history; final law.

A supported decision-making agreement lets a person with a disability choose someone to help them understand information and communicate decisions, while the person keeps decision-making authority. SB66 uses the existing Estates Code definitions; a supporter is not thereby made the person’s lawyer or substitute decision-maker. Existing agreement scope.

The Office of Court Administration must examine the legal and ethical implications of supporter involvement in civil and criminal proceedings, including whether a supporter’s presence during legal consultations could waive attorney-client privilege or another protection. It must identify laws that may need changing, examine other jurisdictions’ practices balancing autonomy and access to justice with confidentiality, and recommend statutory changes it considers appropriate.

The office may consult Disability Rights Texas, relevant State Bar sections, legal aid organizations, public defenders, judges and other experienced stakeholders. Consultation is permitted, not required with every listed group. Its findings and recommendations are due to the governor, lieutenant governor, House speaker and appropriate legislative committees by December 1, 2026. That is the law’s reporting deadline, not a claim that a report has already been submitted.

What changed along the way?

The introduced, Senate committee and engrossed bills would have added legal records to the agreement’s information-access language and added civil and criminal proceedings to the statutory agreement form. They would have applied those changes to agreements entered into on or after September 1, 2025. All text versions; Senate-passed proposal.

The House committee substitute replaced those changes with the study. The House committee and final operative texts match. The amendment index lists no floor amendments; the House change recorded in the history is the committee substitute, which the Senate accepted May 30. The proposed agreement and form changes did not become law through SB66. House substitute; Amendment index; Enrolled law.

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

The latest posted fiscal note, May 21, 2025 for the House substitute, anticipates no significant state or local fiscal impact and assumes costs can be absorbed using existing resources. The earlier introduced and engrossed notes addressed the different authorization proposal; their similar fiscal conclusion is not evidence that the proposal was enacted. Study-version fiscal note.

The immediate obligation is research and reporting by the Office of Court Administration. The study may help lawmakers design clearer support and confidentiality rules, but SB66 itself does not supply representation, change court procedures or guarantee access to a supporter in any particular case. The bill and fiscal notes do not quantify benefits to individual litigants or predict future legislation. Required study and report.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.