Gov. Greg Abbott Tuesday selected three individuals with Texas appellate court experience to serve as justices on the new Fifteenth Court of Appeals. He also named a lawyer in his office and an appellate attorney to the new Austin-based Business Court Division.
Scott A. Brister, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court, was named to lead the new Fifteenth Court of Appeals by Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday. Abbott completed the three-member court with April L. Farris and Scott K. Field. Farris is a justice on the First Court of Appeals and Field is judge of the 480th Judicial District Court in Williamson County and previously served as a justice of the Third Court of Appeals.
Brister joined Hunton Andrews Kurth in 2009 after serving six years on the Supreme Court. He has 20 years of judicial service, including three years at the First and Fourteenth Court of Appeals and 11 years as a district court judge.
Farris has served on the First COA since January 2021. She previously was an appellate litigation partner at Yetter Coleman and served as an assistant solicitor general for Texas.
Field served six years on the Third COA, where he decided case involving state agencies similar to those expected to be heard by the new intermediate appellate court. Abbott appointed him in 2022 to the newly created district court.
In announcing inaugural members to the court of appeals, Abbott is bringing to fruition plans for the statewide court of appeals, which will hear appeals from the business trial courts and cases involving state agencies.
“These highly experienced individuals will serve a vital role in our state’s effort to ensure that the Texas Constitution and state statutes are applied uniformly throughout Texas and that businesses have a sophisticated and efficient process to resolve their disputes,” said the governor in a late-afternoon news release.
The appointments of Brister, Farris and Field are effective Sept. 1 when the courts will open. They will be subject to approval by the Texas Senate, which is not scheduled to meet until January. Their terms will expire on Dec. 31, 2016.
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In addition, the governor began making his long-awaited appointments to the business trial courts, starting with Melissa Andrews and Patrick K. Sweeten to the Third Business Court Division in Austin. That division will serve the Central Texas region.
Andrews is a partner at Holland & Knight. Previously, she served as an attorney for Texas Supreme Court Justice Jeff Boyd and former First Court of Appeals Justice Harvey Brown. Andrews was a law clerk for Judge Don R. Willett while he served on the Texas Supreme Court. She is board certified in Civil Appellate Law.
Sweeten is the principal deputy general counsel for the Office of the Governor. He has over 25 years of experience litigating in federal and state court, including as lead counsel in pharmaceutical, securities, multi-district litigation, and deceptive trade practices and common law fraud actions, according to a news release. He previously served as the deputy attorney general for special litigation and was the state’s lead counsel in defense of three rounds of redistricting litigation.
The Texas Lawbook previously reported Brister and Field among the names of 30 candidates who had applied for the new judicial positions, according to records provided by the governor’s office in response to public information requests. Farris, Andrews and Sweeten were not included.
Last month, the first known constitutional challenge to the creation of the Fifteenth Court of Appeals landed at the Texas Supreme Court. In that case, Dallas County is accusing the Texas Health and Human Services Commission of failing to comply with obligations to transfer inmates who have been determined not competent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity from the county jail to state hospitals.
Dallas County has asked the state’s supreme court to declare the newly created court unconstitutional in a bid to prevent its lawsuit from being transferred Sept. 1 when the new court goes live. The county argues the structure of the new court violates the state’s constitution.
In a response to the petition filed June 7, attorneys with the state solicitor general’s office, representing the HHSC, told the Texas Supreme Court that while the state “would benefit from resolution of the question presented,” jurisdictional defects, including Dallas County’s lack of standing, prevent the court from hearing the case.
Additionally, the creation of the new court “does not violate any provision of the Texas Constitution,” the response argues.
Michelle Casady contributed to this report.