Interviewing Former Justices on the 2nd and 5th Court of Appeals

It wasn’t long ago that I joined the Oral History Section of the Appellate Section of the State Bar of Texas and became Co-Chair along with JoAnn Story of Houston. She had been tirelessly working the committee’s state wide effort to interview all of the former justices on the Court of Appeals in Texas. These interviews are being videotaped, transcribed and edited and will be published in the Appellate Advocate as the interviews are being completed.

Before long we had volunteers to finish all of the former justices for the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth.I was fortunate to interview Judge Maryellen Hicks and Judge Sidney Farrar who served on the Second Court of Appeals in the 1990s.

Brittani Rollen, an attorney in Fort Worth took over the remaing work there but we still have work to do in editing the interviews. The interviews are continuing to take place. Thanks to Texas A&M Law School who offered the facility and editing process.

Then it was time for the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas. Last week the Appellate Section of the Dallas Bar sent out an email blast for volunteers to interview the twenty six former justices from the Fifth Court of Appeals who are still living. It took only two days to find volunteers from the Dallas Bar to assist with the remaining interviews.

Thanks to Thompson & Knight in Dallas for providing their law offices for the video taping of the interviews. Rebecca Nichols interviewed Mary Murphy and her interview was published last fall in the Appellate Advocate. Frank Carroll interviewed Jim Mosely who stepped down from the Fifth Court of Appeals last year.

We should be finalizing this project by the end of this year. I will continue to post our progress. This is a great project because you are preserving a part of Texas history and the lives of our distinguished jurists.