Kyle Hawkins stood before the Texas Supreme Court last Oct. 8 and argued that nicotine pouches distributed by his client McLane Company were being unlawfully taxed as tobacco products.
What Hawkins didn’t know at the time, he says, is that a few short weeks later he would be standing in the Governor’s Mansion, wife Caitlin and four young children at his side, being sworn in by Gov. Greg Abbott as the newest justice on the court.
“I did not know when I argued that that I would be appointed to the court, have the great honor and the great fortune to be appointed a few short weeks later,” Hawkins told The Texas Lawbook.
Hawkins’ judicial application and questionnaire was received by the governor’s office Oct. 17, and his appointment was announced Oct. 24. He declined to say whether he was invited by the governor’s office to apply.
In the news release naming Hawkins, Abbott touted his work “for the freedom of states like Texas to administer Medicaid programs consistent with pro-life values” and “challenging the federal overreach of Obamacare.”
Hawkins’ appointment continues a recent trend of Abbott naming high court justices who haven’t been trial court judges or served on the state’s network of intermediate appellate courts.
The appointment was a capstone of an exceptional 2025 for Hawkins, a 45-year-old South African immigrant with extensive experience in the private and public sectors.
From February to April, he was a senior member of President Donald Trump’s transition team at the Department of Justice. He argued for the government at the U.S. Supreme Court in April in a closely watched case involving South Carolina’s exclusion of Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid provider. In June, a 6-3 majority agreed that South Carolina could exclude Planned Parenthood without violating patients’ constitutional right to choose any qualified provider.
Also at the U.S. Supreme Court, he filed a brief on behalf of his pro bono clients, several Amish schools and parents challenging New York’s ban on religious exemptions for childhood vaccines. In December, the court vacated a federal appeals court ruling upholding the strict school vaccine requirements and remanding the case for further consideration.
After his DOJ stint, Hawkins joined Lehotsky Keller Cohn, where he led the litigation boutique’s Texas appellate practice. In that capacity he argued and won a 2025 case at the Texas Supreme Court that dismissed shareholder claims alleging mismanagement against an advisor to a Maryland real estate investment trust. (He did not participate in the November decision.)
Hawkins was hired by McLane for an amicus brief and arguments in a dispute between the Texas comptroller and RJR Vapor after the state appealed a decision from the Third Court of Appeals that said VELO oral nicotine products are not taxable and that RJR Vapor is entitled to a refund.
The state focused its case on the health risks of nicotine, especially to adolescents who could be drawn to VELO’s fruit flavors. RJR and McLane said the products do not contain tobacco.
Hawkins will not participate in the decision.
From South Africa to Minnesota
Hawkins was born in Johannesburg to a family whose roots in the African country date to the 1800s. When he was in first grade his family emigrated to the U.S., settling in Minnesota where his father became a statistics professor at the University of Minnesota.
“My parents wanted a better life for my brother and me, and so we came here in 1986. I became a naturalized citizen in 1993,” he said. “My parents placed a high premium on working hard and on education, and they let me pursue my interests as a kid and the topics that I liked.”
Drawn to history, civics and literature, Hawkins received an A.B. from Harvard College, focusing on U.S. history and literature. He received his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School where he served as editor-in-chief of the Minnesota Law Review, graduating summa cum laude
He says it was an honor to have been a law clerk for two conservative stalwarts, Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
“They both demonstrated to me how to be a good judge, how to decide cases based on the dispassionate application of law to facts,” said Hawkins. “I learned a lot about how they approach legal issues, the bread-and-butter tasks that I do now as a justice, how to interpret statutes, how to interpret constitutional provisions, how to craft opinions.”
Between clerkships he was a member of Gibson Dunn’s constitutional law practice group. He rejoined the group in 2021 as a partner after serving as assistant solicitor general and solicitor general for Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The pull of public service won out with his appointment to the Supreme Court, which Hawkins calls “a dream job.” While his highest profile arguments may have concerned controversial topics such as abortion and vaccines, his less visible commercial litigation helped prepare him for the variety of cases heard by the court.
“To have the chance to do that in private practice, both with the government and also with law firms, was a really valuable experience for me and I think set me up well to come here and serve as a justice on the other side of the bench,” he said.
Stare Decisis Skepticism
On the state judicial application obtained by The Lawbook under the Public Information Act, Hawkins was asked what role should precedent and stare decisis play in judicial decision-making.
“A Supreme Court Justice’s oath is to the Constitution and laws of the United States and of Texas, not to prior judicial precedent,” he wrote. “If a Justice of the Texas Supreme Court concludes that the Constitution and laws require an outcome inconsistent with previous precedent, the Constitution and laws should prevail.”
In response to other questions, Hawkins named Justice Alito as a judge he admires, saying he “saw firsthand his extraordinary analytical talent, indefatigable work ethic, sound judicial temperament, unmatched legal craftmanship, and unwavering commitment to the rule of law.”
He picked Employment Division v. Smith as an incorrect decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that should be reconsidered. The 1990 decision allowed Oregon to deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for using peyote as part of a religious ritual.
In his petition for writ of certiorari in the school vaccine case, Hawkins argued that the law falls outside of Smith because it “barred religiously motivated nonvaccination of students but still permits secularly motivated nonvaccination” for medical reasons.
If Smith allows the New York law to stand, the court should reconsider it, he said in the petition. “There is no reason that violations of the Free Exercise Clause should be subjected to a less searching standard of review than violations of other constitutional freedoms,” he said.
In its December order remanding the case, the Supreme Court directed the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reconsider the case in light of its 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor. That casedetermined that a Maryland school district’s policy of not allowing parents to opt their children out of instruction involving storybooks featuring characters and themes related to sexual orientation and gender identity violated the parents’ right to free exercise of religion.
On the Ballot
Hawkins replaced Jeff Boyd on the court for a position that is on the ballot this year. He does not have a primary opponent, which gives him time to raise money and introduce himself to voters.
“I think there’s value in the judges of the state meeting the voters and meeting the people who are affected by their rulings,” he said.
He’s often asked what’s the best part of the job.
“It’s been really remarkable to me the incredible collection of talent on the Texas Supreme Court,” he said. “I truly believe we’re the best supreme court in the country. I have eight very sharp, very dialed-in colleagues who are very committed to upholding the rule of law and deciding every case that comes before us fairly and accurately based on the neutral application of the law to the facts.”
“And I’ve really found that iron sharpens iron,” he added. “We all keep each other on our ‘A’ game and demand the best of each other, and it’s led to a wonderful atmosphere on this court that I think benefits all Texans.”
Representative Cases
Before joining the Texas Supreme Court last October, Kyle Hawkins argued more than a dozen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and Texas Supreme Court, including the following:
- Hancock v. RJR Vapor: Argued for amicus McLane at the Texas Supreme Court over the constitutionality of the tobacco products tax as applied to oral nicotine pouches. Hawkins, who was appointed to the court several weeks after the Oct. 8 argument, is not participating in the pending decision.
- In re UMTH General Services: Argued and won 2025 case at the Texas Supreme Court that dismissed shareholder claims alleging mismanagement against an advisor to a Maryland real estate investment trust. The court held that an advisory agreement did not create a duty to individual shareholders distinct from obligations to the entity. Hawkins did not participate in the decision issued after he joined the court.
- Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic: Argued for the United States and won at the U.S. Supreme Court a 2025 dispute on whether the Medicaid Act’s any-qualified-provider provision creates a private right to sue.
- California v. Texas: Represented Texas and a coalition of other states in the third challenge heard by the U.S. Supreme Court to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court held by a vote of 7-2 in 2021 that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the individual mandate. (The federal tax penalty was reduced to zero by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, but some states have enacted individual mandate penalties.)
- Gamble v. United States: Represented Texas on behalf of a coalition of 36 states and presented oral argument urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the “separate sovereign” doctrine under the Double Jeopardy Clause. The court voted 7-2 in 2019 to continue allowing states and the federal government to separately prosecute the same criminal act.