Chief Justice Nathan Hecht is retiring after an extraordinary 43 years on the bench. In this special episode, he joins Todd Smith and Jody Sanders to reflect on his remarkable career as Texas’s longest-serving Chief Justice. He shares personal stories, pivotal milestones, and the transformative reforms he championed, from modernizing court technology to improving access to justice. Don’t miss this candid and inspiring conversation about Chief Justice Hecht’s enduring legacy, his vision for the future of Texas courts, and his advice to the next generation of lawyers and judges.
In this episode, our guest is very special. We have Chief Justice Nathan Hecht with us here. Thank you so much, Chief, for joining us.
I’m glad to do it. Thank you for having me.
You’re not our everyday guest. We’ve had a bunch of your cohorts on the Supreme Court over time. When Jody and I started this show, this would have been the pinnacle of where we could hope to go with it, having the chief justice of Texas on the show. Thank you for doing this. Texas lawyers are going to know you and you’re certainly a very outfront figure for the court and representative of the judiciary. I’d like to spend a few minutes talking about the beginnings of Nathan Hecht’s life. Those of us who have attended the Supreme Court Historical Society have heard a lot of these stories but would you give us a short explanation of where you come from and how you got to the law?
I was born on a farm in Clovis, New Mexico, right across the Texas border, from Farwell and Texico. I grew up there and went to high school there. My dad was a grain farmer. I went off to Yale for an undergraduate course. It was my first visit to New Haven, Connecticut. I might as well have been going to Mars for a while, I thought. It’s a long way from Clovis, New Mexico. I enjoyed it very much. I thought I was going to be a mathematician and engineer maybe. I enjoyed that in high school. It turned out that I liked math more than it liked me. After one semester, I figured I better look around for something else.
I majored in philosophy. I went home at Christmas time in my freshman year. We had a friend, who helped us with, every once in a while federal, government program qualifications for the farm. He was a lawyer and his family was all from our area. We went to dinner at Christmas time. He said, “You should think about being a lawyer.” There were no lawyers in my family ever. I thought, “We’ll see.” I enjoyed the change in my major to philosophy. One thing led to another.
After a couple of years, I thought, “I should apply to law school.” That’s what I did. I went to SMU in Dallas. After I graduated, I had a clerkship in the DC circuit. I was in the Navy for a short time with the JAG Corps as a lawyer. I went back to practicing in Dallas at the lock firm, Locke Purnell as we called it at the time. I enjoyed that. It was a general business practice. That’s what got me up to going on the bench.
You were a business litigator but then it wasn’t long in your career before you were called to the bench for the first time. How long did you practice before you first became the judge?
I started in January of 1976 and left in August of ‘81. That was a little over five years. I made a partner in the spring of February of ‘81. I’d always thought about being a judge. I love the judge I clerked for. He was 50 years older than I was but he’d had a storied career in Washington. He said, “You may want to be a judge someday.” I said, “Yes, sir. I might. What advice?” He said, “Work real hard. Remember that people are watching you all the time. You need to do a good job at everything. If it were me, I wouldn’t go looking. These things come along.”
That’s exactly what had happened to him. His nomination to the DC circuit fell out of the clear blue sky one day. I was awakened Saturday morning in August. At about 2:00 AM, my friend John Estes was calling me. I told John, “Someday I might want to be a judge. What about you, John?” He said, “No.” He didn’t want to be a judge or have the temperament or patience for it. He had been to a meeting for the UT Law School board in 1981. The legislature had added 53 new seats to the Court of Civil Appeals. They changed the name and gave it criminal jurisdiction. This was a sea change.
Governor Clements was trying to fill all those seats, mostly with district and county judges. There were also some lawyers. He was looking around. Governor Clements had admired President Reagan’s take on appointing judges. He thought that it was good to appoint younger people. In Texas history, especially in Dallas and Fort Worth, even in Houston, most of the time, the judges were a little older. He was looking for somebody younger.
John called me at 2:00 the morning and said, “Do you want to be a judge?” I said, “John, it’s 2:00 in the morning.” He said, “Are you going to change your mind by morning?” I said, “No, but yeah, I guess so.” He said, “Let’s talk about it in the morning.” We did. On a Monday, we went and met a couple of lawyers, on Tuesday, another couple of people, and on Wednesday, the governor’s office called. By Thursday, I was getting ready to be a district judge.
That’s an incredibly accelerated timeline.
I was hoping someday I might do it but I wasn’t planning on it. It’s good.
Was it a civil bench?
Yes, it was a civil bench in Dallas. The governor moved my good friend Joe Fish to the Dallas Court of Appeals. A couple of years later, he moved to the Northern District bench.
You were on the district bench. Those who’ve followed your career know something about it. You’re one of those rare judges who has essentially been at every level, not necessarily the justice of the peace court or anything like that but you started at the district bench and moved up the ranks as it were over a period. How long were you on the district bench before you wound up on the Dallas Court of Appeals?
I got there in ‘81. In the summer of ‘86, one of the incumbents on the Dallas Court of Appeals decided not to run. He had been going to run and decided not to. There was a vacancy on the ballot that year. When that happens, the executive committee of the party in that area in Dallas, and it would be on the counties that were in the 5th court appeals district, would meet together so the Republican party executives and the Democratic party executives would meet together and they’d pick a candidate. There wasn’t a primary because the primary was all over it. Long about the end of August, they each picked a candidate. I was the Republican candidate. I campaigned about Labor Day until Election Day. It’s the way to campaign for all kinds.
Another accelerated timeline.
I was going to be up in ‘88. I was thinking about running for reelection and going back into practice, which I like. My friend, Tom Phillips, called. He wanted to be a chief justice of the Supreme Court. I said, “There’s no way. That’s not possible. You’re too young.” Besides that, he was going to run as a Republican but there’d never been a Republican elected to the Supreme Court in history. There were some back in the Reconstruction but they weren’t elected. He was going to do it and he wanted me to help him. I said, “I’ll do everything I can.” He said, “No. I want you to come and run with me.” I thought, “I was thinking about going back into practice anyway. Maybe this would be an exit strategy.” We ran together. Lo and behold, we won.
I’d forgotten that he was young when he became chief.
He was about 38.
You would have been young, too.
We’re the same. He and I are the same age.
Look at the timeline. Your time from becoming a partner at the law firm in that five-year period is unheard of now to become a partner at a law firm. You’re on the bench before age 30. I understand the philosophy of appointing and you’re getting the judges up young. You broke the mold. You came on the Supreme Court and then you were a justice on the Supreme Court for many years, and then along came the opportunity to become the chief when Chief Justice Jefferson decided to step down. What can you tell us about the differences between the job of justice versus chief? It seems like the chief’s job is more front and center in the public face of the court. Is that right?
Yeah. I was justice until the judge you clerked for, Justice Gonzalez, left the court in 1999 or 2000. I became senior justice. The tradition on our court, going back pretty much to 1945 when the court membership went from 3 to 9, has been that the senior justice helps the chief with administrative stuff. The interesting thing about the court is everybody gets one vote and that’s it.
It’s the difference between where you went to school and what you know about the law. “I was an oil and gas lawyer and this is an oil and gas case. I know everything about that.” That’s fine. You get one vote. The court has always made it a priority for the judges to be generalists and not to farm cases to one person or another. On administrative stuff, and there’s a huge amount of it, the chief takes the lead. We divide it up but the senior justice tries to help manage that. Raul was a senior justice at the time when he left. I came in behind him and stayed there until 2013 when the governor appointed me chief and Justice Jefferson left.
The law work for the judges and the staff is you’ve been here. It’s the same for everybody. You have opinion assignments, petitions to read, and briefs to study. That part is all the same but on the administrative side, you’re helping to be a liaison to everything from the State Bar and legislative priorities to helping run the building and making sure that the facilities commission is keeping everything running. We divide all that up, children’s commission, mental health commission, and various bar groups. I was in the senior justice position doing that.
I didn’t have an opponent in 2006 and a real strong opposition in 2012. I thought after that I would retire way past retirement. We were at a conference with Chief Justice Jefferson and went off campus to work for a couple of days but also to be in a more casual setting. He says, “I need to talk to you. Let’s go for a walk.” We went up for a walk and I said, “I need to tell you something.” He said, “I need to tell you something. Since I’m chief, I’ll go first. I’m retiring.” I said, “I hadn’t heard anything about it.” He had three boys he was trying to race. He said, “What did you want to tell me?” I said, “I was going to tell you I’m retiring.” “No, you’re not. Let’s stay put.” That’s how it ended up.
I’m trying to imagine Chief Justice Jefferson saying, “I’m chief so I’ll go first.” I like that. That’s great.
We wanted to have you on the show to not only hear that great history that helps to give everything context in terms of your legal career but we’d like the opportunity to spend a little time reflecting on your career on the court generally, not just as chief, and then maybe talk about the legacy that you hope to leave. We’ll set that part of the conversation up.
In case we haven’t made it clear, we’re here in the private conference room in your chambers at the Supreme Court building. This is the second time ever that we’ve ever recorded live at the Supreme Court building. The first was our very first episode going all the way back to March of 2020, if you can believe that. This is a pretty rare event. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to come and visit with you live and in person. Thank you again for having us. As we get ready to mark a very important date for you, which is your retirement for real this time, at the end of December 2024, the legislature says, “Chief, you got to retire.”
The people.
That’s a constitutional issue. Even though you were ready all those years ago, are you really ready this time?
I think so. There was a constitutional amendment in the last session to raise the age to 89. I was not involved in that. There are a lot of trial judges from time to time but great judges. Retirement age is arbitrary. Several of them had thought about maybe raising the age at some point. I pretty well had it in mind that 2024 was going to be my last year. I was not at all surprised that the amendment didn’t pass.
There was an amendment in New York some years ago to raise it from 70 to 75. Their retirement age constitutionally is 70. The whole state was for it. It was in the newspapers, the Post, and The New York Times. It was in Upstate New York. It went down 60 to 40 like the one here did. Having older people in office is a hard sell for a lot of people. I get that. When it came along, I’ve been thinking about it anyway. It’s time.
When you look back on your time as a justice on the court and as chief, what accomplishments either you or the court specifically have made that you think are the most special or you’re most proud of?
The place has changed and you can’t even imagine the change. When I got here in 1989, our docket management system was 3X5 cards and the clerk wrote out by hand. We didn’t have a computerized system. We use mag card typewriters if anybody remembers what those were. We didn’t have word processing, the internet, or email. A lot of time was spent on meetings because that’s the only way for nine people to get something done. We met all the time.
When I first got here, we met on Monday and Tuesday in conference every week. Every once in a while, we take a week off. The conference would last all day. We’d start at 9:00 and usually, we wouldn’t finish until 6:00 or 7:00 at night. We’d hear arguments in three cases on Wednesday. The next week, we’d do the same thing again. It’s hard to find time to study, work, and write. All that’s changed. We have a conference one day a month and so much is done ahead of time. It’s all done by email. The docket management systems are all put together. That’s all changed.
With it, the personal working culture has changed some. Throughout the ‘90s. You spent a lot of time together. We began to ease off that conference every week routine. Pretty quickly after I got here, none of us liked it. We’d go every other week and then maybe every third week or maybe two days every third week. We experimented as things went along. In the meantime, the working relationships change a little bit to meet that change in schedule.
You know this, Todd because you clerked for Justice Gonzalez. The personal relationships between the justices are crucial in a collaborative court. You’ve got to get your work done and be able to disagree very strenuously. These are hard and important issues. People think differently about a lot of things and you’ve got to not give up a bit. You got to go to the next case. Trying to maintain all of that when the world around us was changing was a key part.
It’s good that our law clerks get to sit in on conferences because they can see that. They see some case discussions getting pretty strong. People are going back and forth, exchanging views, and criticizing one another, and then it’s over. You go to the next case. The person who was sitting next to you who was criticizing you in the first case, all of a sudden, in the second case, becomes a genius. Two of you are together. That’s a big part of it.
You made me laugh a little in those last comments. I remember Judge Gonzalez. I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying this publicly but he would sometimes say, “I’m going to go talk to my friend, Nathan.” At the time, he was 1 of 2 Democrats on the court. The other is Justice Rose Spector. That was a very interesting thing to observe as a brand new lawyer. You point out that the law clerks get to sit in on conference, which is an extremely rare thing. The last time I heard, this court was the only one around that permits that. That’s a truly great experience that you provide the court to the law clerks and get to see how justice is done behind the closed doors of the Supreme Court.
You highlight some of the things that have changed over your time with the court. Going from index cards to the Tame system is a pretty big jump. The change in technology was incredible. You and the quarter are to be commended for that. I can speak for Jody. We take it for granted that we do things electronically and easily. I have my whole office on my iPad if I want it, which is such a nice change from how it was in the old days.
Everything is so publicly accessible, which is a big change. You can look up any case, any brief, and anything you want to see. It’s all out there with who wants to know. Also, the video streaming arguments.
I credit Chief Justice Jefferson and Justice Green with the video streaming. It was their idea. I was a little nervous about it. The only good reason to be nervous about it, in my view, is you worry about how it can be excerpted or used to put unfavorable attention. In our court, it could even be a lawyer, position, or judge. We have not had that experience at all. It’s been gray. They say all the time, “It’s so good to be able to pull up an archive argument and see what it’s like and how it works.”
We’ve gotten spoiled with it. You go to the intermediate courts and that option is not always available. I would love it if a lot of those courts would make audio recordings available but there’s no substitute for that video and being able to tune in wherever we are to an argument. The court does such a good job of communicating about what’s going on. It started with Osler McCarthy and has continued since Osler’s been retired.
If I get an email from the Supreme Court of Texas, there’s usually something in there I want to see. The court has been very active lately. Rule changes and there are some big ones. It’s nice to feel like I’m kept informed without having to go and check the website all the time. The public messaging that the court has done for quite some time has been good. It’s made the lives of practitioners and the parties better.
When practitioners feel more comfortable with how it works, then that’s not in the way of making a good argument. It enhances everything.
What has been the most rewarding part of your time at the court?
It’s hard to say. I’ve had great law clerks and legal staff over the years. I’ve been blessed to get to work with some good people. That part is always good. The cases are challenging and interesting. Being able to contribute a little bit to the justice system in our state is certainly meaningful. I was helping the place and hoping would run a little better. You mentioned some big rule changes but it will take the old timers here to remember back writ of error and how different that practice was from petition for review. When we changed that, we changed the whole appellate rules. We rewrote them from top to bottom.
One of the guiding principles at the court, and we all agreed about this from the beginning, but Justice Massey, Justice Doggett, and all of us felt like you shouldn’t lose an appeal on a technicality. It’s hard to make that promise in the trial court because it’s such a different place. Learned Hand said at the beginning of the 20th century that you shouldn’t lose an appeal because you didn’t put it in the right format, you left out a point of error, or something tricky that doesn’t have anything to do with the substance.
Changing the discovery rules in the late ‘90s was a big deal. We’ve had a lot of rule changes along the way. Not just in the district court and the county court but years ago, we changed the rules in the justice of the peace courts. It gave them more flexibility. They handle 800,000 cases a year. That’s where people meet their justice system. They don’t ever see the Supreme Court. They see the justice of the peace on a ticket, eviction, small claim, or whatever it is.
Trying to make all of that work better has been a great part of it. I’ll always have to say access to justice is such a priority for the court. It was for Chief Justice Pope before I got here. We’ve always been unanimous about it. There’s never been any question. We’re going to do everything we can. Everybody’s pitched in. I’m proud that it’s been a priority for our court.
You’ve been very outspoken about that on behalf of the court. The court has shown real leadership in that area and others as well. This is a good segue to talk a little bit about one of the big rule changes, which is the rule on paraprofessionals. We had Chief Justice Busby and Ken Wooten a couple of episodes back. They came and talked about some of the nitty-gritty when it came to that change.
I have to assume that you’re pretty pleased with the court’s ability to have pushed that through and amid a lot of feedback from a lot of stakeholders. Justice Busby and Ken made clear that there’s been a lot of feedback about, “Is this going to take work away from practicing lawyers?” It seems that the rule is written where that should not be the case. Where the gap is being met is truly the gap where there are folks who are not getting legal services. I bet that was quite a job and something to see inside the four walls of the core as far as going from point A to point B, getting those rules pushed through.
It’s been knocking around the American system for a while. It started in Utah and Arizona. They took different approaches to it. Arizona had a more rules-based approach and Utah had a more experimental approach. We’re up to thirteen states that have done it. The fundamental argument is that the need for basic civil legal services, among the American people, especially in Texas is so great. It is so far beyond the ability of the bar to meet.
There’s no way in the world that the lawyers in the country could meet it if they spent full time on it and they shouldn’t. We don’t expect doctors to treat people for free, grocers to feed them for free, and lawyers to represent them for free, even though lawyers do, which is fine. We have to do everything we can. Here’s a way that you can stretch the public appropriations funds and some of the private money to make it go further in representing people by letting paraprofessionals do some of the work that a lawyer would have to do otherwise.
You’re exactly right. This is not taking business away from the bar. These are all people who cannot pay anything for the legal services that they’re getting. I’m sure Justice Busby said this but look at the medical profession. We’ve gone to nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants, and all kinds of people for the same reason. The MDs need to be doing the kind of treatment and work that needs MD help. If you’ve got a cold and you’re not sure if it might be the flu, you want to go to a clinic and get it checked out, you don’t need to see a doctor to do that. You can go in and get easy treatment.
I think they’ll agree with this but what the medical profession learned in the process was that when I go in to see a clinician because I’m afraid I might be getting sick and it’s allergies, the clinician takes one look at me and says, “I don’t think you’re getting sick.” If there’s a bump on your face and what your color is, and they took a blood test and you’ve got other problems, you need to see a physician. It helps people. It doesn’t take people away from the medical practice. It opens a door for them. We’re hopeful that it’ll work. I’d be surprised if a majority of states aren’t doing it within the next couple of years. Maybe everybody will, which makes a lot of sense.
Is Texas the largest state to have done it so far?
Yes. Arizona and Alaska have done it. Alaska has a program but population-wise, Texas is larger.
Do you think there’s room for expansion of the subject matters that the paraprofessionals can get into?
I think so. Our approach was a twofold study that is out of it. We make sure that we know everything about how this has worked in other states and how clients come to the paraprofessionals. We have the whole thing work and then not have it be threatening. Have it say, “We’re trying to meet this huge need over here.” If it works and people like it, then so much the better. In Arizona, it’s not limited to legal aid. Law firms can use paraprofessionals, too. Take a genius to see how that would work.
Lawyers who were handling car wrecks, on either side of the bar, plaintiffs or defense, could use help in trying to get those cases ready and get them lined up for trial or settlement. It wouldn’t have to be that. There could be lots of other areas in a law firm that are not just a legal aid provider. It has some utility in expanding it. I would like to see that come from the bar. I don’t want the bar to think that we’re pushing something off on them and that we like better than they do. When they take a look at this, they’ll think it’s good.
Are there any other initiatives or projects that you’ve been behind that you would like to see continue or expand after you leave the court?
We are experimenting with AI. We’re like everybody else. We don’t know what to do about it. It does seem to fit some of our business. There seems to be a lot of agreement that AI summarizes things well. The hype and criticism are when you send it out to write a brief or draft something substant, it’s not going to find what it should. It’s going to make mistakes, errors of judgment, and all sorts of things.
If you ask it to summarize a 2,000-page record, you feed the record in and then if you want a 10-page or a 50-page summary, it will give you that. It takes about 1.5 or 2 minutes to generate it all. There’s not any one of us who hadn’t sat at the chain of the desk trying to summarize the deposition or looking through for what they say about the red light. We could use it a lot to summarize things.
There are lots of providers but we’ve been talking to Westlaw. One thing their product will do is to look at a brief and then ask, “What cases in the country are pertinent to these issues that the brief does not cite?” Within a few minutes, it’ll give you a list of what it thinks are the cases in Idaho. You may think, “I don’t want to sign it. I don’t think it’s going to convince my judgment.” It gives you tools that you don’t have to trust like you’re filing a brief or writing an opinion. Are we going to use it to write opinions? No. I would be very surprised. It’s hard to know but even in 5 or 10 years that we were using it for anything like that.
We’ve seen a lot of judges throughout the country after some missteps with AI in adopting rules requiring disclosure of the use of AI and the legal representation process. Is that something that’s come up before the court in terms of something for consideration?
Yes. When the briefs were thought not to be good, hallucination they call it, and this is an odd word, the immediate reaction was we should have some rules on this. We asked our Supreme Court Advisory Committee to tell us what they thought. They said it was too early for rules. The 5th circuits looked at it and they even had a pretty good draft of possible rules. They decided it was too early for it. There’s a national conference of chief justices and we meet twice a year. We do a lot of work in between meetings but they talk about it every meeting.
The consensus of all of the states so far has been it’s way too early for rules. We don’t know what the rules should say. We’re more afraid that a rule would be a distraction and that lawyers would be worrying about how to comply with a rule that might not do much good instead of worrying about how to make it work or if it won’t work, go on with getting something filed. It’s in the distance.
It seems like there’s an open question about how much of what a rule would try to cover is already covered by the other rules. Do we really need a rule?
Some of it is a need for education about what AI can and can’t do and how it works. It seems like in a lot of the cases that you’ve had or the hallucinations, there’s a missing understanding of the practitioner as to what it can or can’t do.
It’s no secret that the justice system has declined in public trust and confidence pretty dramatically. Surveys used to put courts up in the mid-’60s to ’70s. They’re in the mid-’50s so that’s a pretty dramatic decline. There are some negative feelings about getting treated fairly in the court system. There are lots of reasons for that. Maybe it’s part of the blaze that we’re all in where we don’t like institutions at all, from the church to the courts to the Congress.
One thing we can do about that is you can’t change your decision of people. You decide a case and people say, “I didn’t like that.” There’s nothing you can do about that but you can always make it run better. This court is always looking for ways to make the Texas justice system run better. That’s why we changed the JP rules to cut down the barriers and realize that they don’t need the federal rules of civil procedure. They need to get the job done. It needs to be fair but it doesn’t need to be constructed.
The legislature has been very receptive to that. Also, mental health issues. When I started practicing law, I was not aware that it ever crossed the judge’s mind, except in the probate courts sometimes and maybe in the family courts, that somebody was suffering from a mental impairment. We have all these diversion programs to try to make sure that we’re not punishing somebody because they’re sick. They’re punishing somebody because they’re not doing the right thing and trying to get help in the meantime. Veterans, drug courts, opioid courts, all of these are great success stories.
We’ve got two great commissions that are working on children’s issues and mental health. I hope all of that will continue. I can’t imagine it won’t. The bottom line is however your custody case, misdemeanor trial, or debt collection case comes out, at least you had a fair shot. You were treated with respect. Your time wasn’t wasted. That can improve public trust and confidence as well. I hope there’ll be more things like that.
There’s been a lot of change in law practice and how the court has done business. We’ve covered a lot of ground on that already in this discussion. Think ahead to the next generation. How would you encourage the younger lawyers to view the legal system as it exists, given what the surveys are saying about distrust of public institutions and so forth?
For me, that’s a hard question. I do harken back to some of what my mentors told me when I was getting started. Sometimes they told me and showed me. A lot of times, it was probably more effective when they showed me. You own this. This is not something that you can sit back and throw rocks at. This is the deal. How can you make it better? Do you do pro bono, get involved in bar activities, or work other ways to build a profession like volunteering for youth programs? All kinds of community things are always begging for people.
The chief justice of the United States, in his year-end letter, said that lawyers and judges should teach civics. We do a lot of that. We’ve got some good programs in the cities. Houston has been very active for years and other areas have been. I would tell young lawyers, “There’s more than just the practice that you’re focused on. You should look for ways that you can contribute to and then hope that it contributes to you.” It’s a back-and-forth process. Do not get mired down by the lack of civility that comes along or the friction issues.
Joe Jamail may have been there but I remember Harry Reasoner specifically saying, “The point is not to fight but to win.” When you’re making arguments, trying to put forward a client’s position, or working on the system, the point is to get to a better place and not have a lot of friction in the meantime. There are a lot of other young lawyers and older lawyers who want to see that happen. That can be good.
I worry that young lawyers will not have a push or a draw to see what they’re part of is a bigger thing. You can’t think about this all the time. It’s too big an issue but the public wants justice. It’s what they were promised. You can have it over there and point to the courthouse. It’s trying to make that a reality for people that would help young lawyers feel more engaged.
How do you see the balance between maintaining judicial independence but also the public perception of the judiciary? I feel like the public perception is that judges make decisions for not independent reasons.
That’s plagued us forever. It’s not a new problem. FDR famously tried to pack the courts because he didn’t like their decisions. Presidents all along the way have done the same thing. President Obama called out the public funding of elections. In his State of the Union message, President Trump criticized an Obama judge. The chief responded and said there was no such thing. Others got into a tussle about that.
Judges need to do as good a job as they possibly can to not give anybody reason to think that. That’s pretty easy. You stay out of social media, except when you’re campaigning. You have to campaign. That’s another story but I’ve never been for that. You need to do everything you can to not give anybody a reason to think that. The second thing is you need to explain yourself as well as you possibly can and not dust anything off. I’m not saying judges do that but part of the strength of the decision is in the explanation of it.
I’ve been to a lot of meetings on this, Jody, in the last couple of years. I’ve written on it. We need the bar’s help. Every once in a while when you would read about a decision, the reporter would be standing there or maybe they’d hand him a mic and the lawyer would say, “We don’t agree with the judge’s decision. We don’t agree with the outcome but we respect the judge, the jury, and the court.”
That last half is missing. It’s okay to say, “I don’t like this decision because I worry about the fallout from it.” We should be quick to say that the institutions and judiciary remain strong. You have to back off a little bit because you can’t pressure judges to make different decisions. If do that, then there’ll be no end of it. You walk into the family court. Relationship is an issue and custody of your children.
You look up on the bench. You don’t want to wonder, “Does that judge like my lawyer better or the other lawyer better in the right party?” Judicial independence is a hard sell to the framers. They said, “We don’t know. Jefferson wasn’t much of a judicial independence guy.” He said, “No. They should answer to the public like everybody else does that wields power.” History’s proven that it can’t be that way but we have to stay after it.
Do you see a future where Texas stops doing partisan elections for judges? You and the other chiefs have spoken out on this for years.
I’ve been against it from when I first heard it existed back when I was in law school. I get all the arguments but it seems to me that the danger of politics is too great to let it get that close to judicial selection. We had an election. When the politics of a region are pretty stable, then the only real fusses are in the primary. A lot of times, those are almost family fights there. They’re not as aggressive as general elections. If there is a possibility of change in a general election, then either people are going to marshal troops.
With the election in Wisconsin or Minnesota, $50 million was spent on that. One judge to the state supreme court was $50 million. You have what we went through, which is results that were due to the top of the ticket. When you apply to be on the ballot, you know what the rules are. You should know what to expect but it’s pretty hard to think that you were trying to be a good judge and you lost your job because people didn’t like the president or the challenger. Do I think it’ll change? No. I ask people, “Do you want to vote for judges?” “I sure do.” “Why? You don’t even know who they are.” “I want to vote for him.”
We’re getting to the point where we need to start winding down. We appreciate the time that you’ve given us but here are a few more things we want to cover. One of which I want to ask is this. We’re going to have for the first time a new chief justice. In my time as a lawyer, I’ve only known three chief justices of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Phillips, Chief Justice Jefferson, and you. What advice would you give to the person who the governor is going to appoint to fill that spot, subject to the next general election?
I’d say that’s part of the job so you have to think about that. The other part alluded to at the beginning is that when you’re one of nine, you need to make sure that the court runs efficiently, people get the work out, and you address administrative issues timely and responsibly. Everybody needs to feel like they’re being brought along. With the other eight, you need to feel more like you’re a part of their court than their chief. Laws sometimes are great at that. I’ve told you that we have a conference with chief justices so I’ve seen the courts around the country. Not just because I’m from Texas but our courts are one of the best. I don’t see that changing.
We can’t let you get out of here without telling us a little something about your retirement plans.
I don’t have any. I want to stay active. I’m not going to keep sitting on the trial and appellate courts. I always thought I’d go to the academy when I left office but I’m not sure I want to do that. I haven’t decided. I’ve been fortunate to have several people suggest offers to me. Everybody says, “Don’t even think about it until you’re down the road a little bit and get a feel for what the other side is like.” I’ve been doing this for many years. I’m going to have to figure out the next steps. I do want to stay active in access to justice and administrative issues that the state courts have around the country. I want to help this court however I can with legislative issues. That’s amorphous but that’s all the plan I have.
I can’t argue with that. It seems like a good approach.
As we close, I’m curious. Is there anything that you have not had the chance to share publicly that you wish people would know that you’re retiring?
I don’t think of anything. I’ve been with seven elections. It’s all been fleshed out in my field pretty deep.
That’s fair.
I can’t miss the opportunity to say what an honor judicial service is. You’re responsible to the people for doing a good job. Sometimes we say that on the campaign trail but people should never wonder that judges are, for the most part, trying to do the right thing.
That’s a great place to wind up.
Our tradition though, before we leave, is to always ask for a tip or a war story. I don’t know if you have one you want to share as we close.
In the trial court, there’s lots of drama all the time. The parties are moving around. The lawyers are taking positions and the judges are in the middle of it. Maybe there are jury, witnesses, and other kinds of people. In the appellate court, it’s quiet as a mouse. A good war story is I’ve forced them to change that semicolon to a colon. You couldn’t believe the expression on their faces.
The only good war stories pretty much that you get on the appellate court are out of arguments. There are lots of argument stories and I’ll tell one. We were arguing a case. Our good friend, Justice Raul Gonzalez, had a bad habit of leaning on the bench on his fist. He’d hold his fist up to his face and lean down on it. It would block his mouth a little bit.
While he was sitting there, he’d think of a question and ask the question. Sometimes, you couldn’t quite hear the question. The lawyer force will always say, “I’m sorry, your honor. I didn’t hear the question.” Justice Gonzalez had a habit of putting his hand out, raising his voice, and repeating the question. It sounded like he was irritated but he wasn’t. He was just responding to the request to make it louder and maybe it was over responding. That’s what he would do.
He did that in this argument. A young woman was arguing the case. She said, “Sorry, you’re honor. I didn’t hear the question.” He repeated it very loudly. She looked at him and fainted, dead away. She fell face down on the floor. We were all stunned. The security came running in. We got off the bench and went back into the Robing room. They were trying to help her. We were shocked at what had happened. Raul said something to the effect of how surprised he was.
I said, “Raul, you killed her.” He didn’t think that was funny. It was a great story. She was fine and insisted on finishing the argument. We gave her a few minutes and she did. I don’t remember the case or who the people were but she did a great job. It turned out the reason she fainted was that she’d been up all night drinking coffee and trying to get ready for an argument. That’s a lesson in and of itself. The best way to get ready for an argument is to get a good night’s sleep.
Chief, thank you again for agreeing to visit and spending time with us. This has been special. We sure appreciate it.
You bet. Thanks for all you do.
Important Links
- Chief Justice Nathan Hecht – LinkedIn
- First Episode Notice of Our Appeal – Past episode
- Chief Justice Busby and Ken Wooten – Past episode
Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share.
A special thanks to our sponsors:
Join the Texas Appellate Law Podcast Community today:
About Chief Justice Nathan Hecht
Nathan L. Hecht is the 27th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas. He has been elected to the Court seven times, first in 1988 as a Justice and then in 2014 and 2020 as Chief Justice.
He is the longest-serving member of the Court in Texas history and the longest-tenured Texas judge in active service. Throughout his service on the Court, he has overseen revisions to the rules of administration, practice, and procedure in Texas courts, and was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to the federal Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. He is also active in the Court’s efforts to assure that Texans living below the poverty level, as well as others with limited means, have access to basic civil legal services.
Chief Justice Hecht was appointed to the district court in 1981 and was elected to the court of appeals in 1986. Before taking the bench, he was a partner in the Locke firm in Dallas. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in philosophy from Yale University, and a Juris Doctor degree cum laude from the Southern Methodist University School of Law, where he was a Hatton W. Sumners Scholar. He clerked for Judge Roger Robb on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
He is a past president of the national Conference of Chief Justices, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Life Member of the American Law Institute and a member of Council, and a member of the Texas Philosophical Society.
He won re-election in November 2020 to a term that ends December 31, 2026.