Business Litigation / 1 min read
Sometimes, it’s good to get back to first principles. In an opinion issued on December 1, 2025, Hon. Andrew M. Edison granted a motion to strike a corporation’s answer because the corporation failed to appear in the litigation through a lawyer. The company was given until January 16, 2026 to appear through counsel.
In that opinion, the Court drew on caselaw from Kansas to Florida to remind the parties of a perennial rule for American businesses in federal court: “It has been the law for the better part of two centuries that a corporation may appear in the federal courts only through licensed counsel. The right to conduct business in these forms carries with it an obligation to hire a lawyer when the entity is sued. Against this legal backdrop, district courts across the nation have found that the continued failure of a corporate or business entity to retain counsel despite the Court’s previous orders to do so constitutes a failure to defend under Rule 55(a) and warrants the clerk entering default against the corporation or business entity.”
The same goes in Texas state district and county courts. There, legal entities (such as a corporation or a limited liability company) generally may appear in a district or county court only through a licensed attorney. A legal entity that attempts to thwart this rule does so at its peril. The only flexibility provided to businesses in state courts is for certain ministerial acts and for certain, lower-level Texas justice court and eviction proceedings. But those exceptions are very limited.
The general rule remains: If your business has been sued, a licensed lawyer must answer the lawsuit on your business’s behalf. For further reference, you can review GS Holistic, LLC v. Upferno Inc, No. 3:23-CV-00249, 2025 WL 3440692, at *1 (S.D. Tex. Dec. 1, 2025); Sherman v. Boston, 486 S.W.3d 88, 95 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2016, pet. denied).