|
Justice Brister was appointed November 21 by Gov. Rick Perry to replace Justice Craig T. Enoch, who retired October 1. Justice Brister had been chief justice of the 14th District Court of Appeals in Houston since 2001. A native of Waco, Justice Brister is a summa cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa, and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. After law school he was a briefing attorney for Chief Justice Joe Greenhill at the Texas Supreme Court in 1980-1981, then practiced law with Andrews & Kurth in Houston. In 1989, Gov. Bill Clements appointed him judge of the 234th District Court in Harris County, to which he was elected in 1990 and re-elected in 1994 and 1998. He was civil administrative judge for the Harris County district courts in 1998-1999. In November 2000 Justice Brister was elected to the First District Court of Appeals in Houston and served until Gov. Perry appointed him chief justice of the 14th Court of Appeals in 2001. He won election to that position in November 2002. Justice Brister twice was specially appointed to the Texas Supreme Court as an interim justice, in 2000, by Gov. George W. Bush, and in 2001, by Gov. Perry. He is board-certified in civil trial law and personal injury trial law. He previously served on the five-member Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, the Supreme Court Advisory Committee and the Supreme Court Jury Task Force. He is a fellow of the Houston and state bar foundations and a member of the College of the State Bar of Texas. He is a co-author of “Texas Pretrial Practice” and has written law review articles in the Baylor Law Review and St. Mary’s Law Journal. Justice Brister and his wife, Julia Upton Brister, have four daughters, Elizabeth, Susannah, Sarah and Mattie. They are members of the Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball. His term ends at the end of 2004. |
