The Appellate Record : Texas Appellate Lawyer & Attorney Kendall Gray for Fifth Circuit & Supreme Court Appeals

Great institutions only become great if their people build them that way.

Texas lost just such a builder on February 11 with the death of Justice Joe Greenhill.

After the jump, we feature a personal remembrance of Judge Greenhill by my colleague, Judge Scott Brister, who served as Judge Greenhill's law clerk before later serving on the Supreme Court of Texas himself.

Pictured: Judge Greenhill (left) and Judge Scott Brister (right) on the occasion of Judge Greenhill's last visit to the Court in 2007.

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Have I said lately why "my" courts rock here in Houston?  Hat tip to the Texas Lawyer Blog for tipping me off on this story. 

Justice Jane Bland of the First Court of Appeals here in Houston will be honored by Chief Justice John Roberts at the Supreme Court of the United States:

Justice Jane Bland . . .   will receive the National Center for State Court’s 2010 William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence at a ceremony tonight at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will make the presentation to Bland . . . . Mary C. McQueen, president of the National Center for State Courts, noted in a news release on the NCSC website that the center recognized Bland for her outstanding skill as a state trial and appellate judge and for her commitment to giving back to the community through bar and volunteer work.

I love seeing good people get recognized, and Justice Bland is "good people."  Justice Bland is smart as a whip, is always prepared, listens, asks good questions, and works hard with the goal of coming to the right answer.  Win or lose, what more could you ask for in a judge? 

And here in Houston, Justice Bland is not alone in those qualities.  Look down the benches and you'll see.  We have it good here in Harris County, Texas.

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A quick bit of news especially relevant to our Texas and Houston readers.

Texas Governor, Rick Perry, has appointed Harvey G. Brown of the firm Wright, Brown & Close LLP as justice of the First Court of Appeals here in Houston. 

Brown, who formerly served as Judge of the 152nd District Court in Harris County, will take the place formerly occupied by Justice George C. Hanks.  His term will expire at the next general election.

Brown is a Texas "Super Lawyer," a frequent and highly sought after CLE speaker, and he writes with a very high level of scholarship on a variety of issues including the uses and admissibility of expert testimony (pdf). 

Both before and after serving on the trial bench, Brown pursued an active and sophisticated civil trial and appellate practice here in Houston.  He will join a bench that I already consider one of the smartest and best prepared of any that I get to argue before. 

Congratulations to Justice Brown and to Governor Perry for a well-made selection.

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Hat tip to the Texas Lawyer's Tex Parte Blog for making me aware of an interesting story.

The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas has inducted Hortense Ward, the first woman admitted to the practice of law in Texas, because cowgirls like her make an impact.

From the Tex Parte Blog:

After Ward was admitted to the bar, she also became the first woman from Texas — as well as from below the Mason-Dixon line — to be admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. As president of the Houston Equal Suffrage Association, she was the first woman registered to vote in Harris County and in the 1920s helped elect the first woman Texas governor, Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson. She also led the charge to pass the Married Women’s Property Act, allowing married Texas women to control their own property and earnings.

Now, of course there are three women serving on the US Supreme Court and two on the Supreme Court of Texas.  Indeed, Justice Harriet O'Neill served as Acting Chief Justice of our state supreme court shortly before she retired, and it was so normal and common place that it almost passed without notice.

Interesting side note: Hortense Ward may have been first at the bar, but she was second in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame.  I daresay you've heard of the first cowgirl, rancher's daughter Sandra Day O'Connor. 

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The next Fifth Circuit Judge may be a Mississippian.  Yesterday, President Obama nominated James E. Graves, Jr. to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  Justice Graves currently serves as the presiding justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court and had a wide range of prior experience as a trial judge, teacher, and public servant. 

The official announcement reads:

“Throughout his career James E. Graves has shown unwavering integrity and an outstanding commitment to public service,” said President Obama.  “I am proud to nominate him to serve on the United States Court of Appeals.”

Some highlights from Justice Graves' bio at the Mississippi Supreme Court are:

Presiding Justice James E. Graves, Jr., has served on the Mississippi Supreme Court since 2001. He was appointed to the Court by Governor Ronnie Musgrove and later won election to the Court in 2004. Prior to serving on the Mississippi Supreme Court, Justice Graves served as a Circuit Court Judge in Hinds County, Mississippi, for ten years.

Justice Graves was born and raised in Clinton, Mississippi. After graduating as the valedictorian of his high school class, he attended Millsaps College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology. He received his law degree from Syracuse University College of Law and a Master of Public Administration degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

* * *
Justice Graves’ background in teaching and education includes serving as a Teaching Team Member of the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School since 1998 and serving as an adjunct professor teaching media law, civil rights law, and sociology of law at Millsaps College, Tougaloo College, and Jackson State University.

* * *

A renowned orator, Justice Graves frequently speaks at universities, schools, churches, and conventions throughout the country. His past speaking engagements include a keynote address at the International Reading Association’s 50th Annual Convention.

Hat tip to Howard Bashman at How Appealing.

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Several weeks ago, a post here on TXI Transportation v. Hughes (pdf) made mention of the fact that a majority of our current Supreme Court of Texas would not have had opportunity to serve at the time of that court's 1889 opinion, Moss v. Sanger, condemning appeals to racial animus in arguments to the jury.

Something just as cool happened this week.  John Council of the Texas Lawyer Blog noted:

. . . Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson was traveling yesterday and could not be at oral arguments. So, by tradition, the most senior justice on the court took his spot in presiding over the first case on the docket. Since Justice Nathan Hecht, the high court’s longest- serving justice, recused himself from hearing TGS- NOPEC Geophysical Co. v. Susan Combs, et al., the job of presiding over the court fell to the next most senior justice, Harriet O’Neill. O’Neill says she didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a historic moment. A woman has not presided over the Texas Supreme Court since 1925, when Gov. Pat Neff appointed an all-woman court. . . .

But the really really cool part is that it happened as a matter of course and nobody noticed until after the fact.  Justice Harriet O'Neill just happened to be the senior justice on duty, and she just did her job, as she has been doing since 1999.  John Council quotes Justice O'Neill:

Isn’t that amazing? I didn’t even think about it,” . . . .

Now we're getting somewhere--when the "right thing" that used to be so hard to do or so exceptional or so controversial becomes so accepted that it happens without a thought.  Nice.

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Hat tip to the ABA Journal for a very interesting profile on Chief Justice Rehnquist's life away from the court, especially in his later years.  A very interesting read that gave me a new sense of the dedication and solitude of those who serve the public from behind the bench. 

Give it a read. 

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