© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
By Allen Pusey
(May 2) — Texas attorneys have elected Randy Sorrels of Houston as the next president-elect of the State Bar of Texas.
In the month-long voting that ended Monday, Sorrels received 58 percent of the 32,445 votes cast. Sorrels defeated Dallas attorney Lisa Blue, who was named on 41 percent of the ballots cast. Write-in candidates received the remaining votes.
In an election that was viewed by many as peculiarly partisan, the number of votes was a record; but as in the past, attorney turnout remained less than a third of those eligible to vote.
Sorrels will be sworn in as president-elect during the State Bar’s Annual Meeting in Houston on June 22, and will serve his term as president beginning in 2019.
Sorrels is a former president of the Houston Bar Association, the Houston Trial Lawyers Association, and the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists. He has served on the State Bar of Texas Board of Directors and currently serves on the South Texas College of Law Houston Board of Directors, as well as the board of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. He is also a past chair of the Texas Bar Foundation.
Both Sorrels and Blue were nominated by the bar association’s board of directors after qualifying by member petitions.
In his campaign for the post, Sorrels — characterized by Blue as a state bar “insider” — proposed a number of initiatives that included: a statewide courthouse security system akin to TSA Precheck in which lawyers can get through expedited security throughout any state court in Texas; unifying the state’s e-discovery process so that every county is on the same electronic system (similar to how all federal courts are on PACER), and an online “Texas lawyers’ briefcase” in which practitioners can upload templates of work they are proud for use by peers or corporate general counsel.
Sorrels, the son of a Vietnam veteran, said he grew up in a household devoted to public service.
“[My dad] was someone who said you have to serve, whether you’re a doctor, a lawyer, a plumber or a janitor, you have to do something besides your job,” Sorrels told The Texas Lawbook.
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