The Hon. Patrick Higginbotham

Practicing Faculty

Biography

Patrick E. Higginbotham was appointed to the United States District Court, Northern District of Texas, in 1975 and in 1982 to the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. When appointed to the District Court, he was the youngest sitting judge in the United States. He was born in Alabama on December 16, 1938 and received his B.A. and LL.B. degrees from the University of Alabama and an honorary Doctor of Law, SMU.

His career over the past 57 years has been in the courtroom, first as a trial lawyer then as judge, he remains an ardent defender of juries. He is an editor of Moore’s Federal Practice and the author of more than 4,000 judicial opinions and 58 articles and book reviews for law reviews and legal journals. He has lectured and taught courses in Constitutional Law and Federal Courts at numerous law schools throughout his career and for more than 10 years at St. Mary’s School of Law, San Antonio, Texas.

In 1975, Judge Higginbotham was a conferee at both the American Assembly on Law and the American Future at Stanford University and served by federal appointment as a special prosecutor; in 1976, he was a conferee at the Pound Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota.

He is a lifetime member of the ALI and advisor to its project on Complex Litigation; Member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for American & International Law for 37 years and Chairman of its Board of Trustees for 13 years (formerly Southwestern Legal Foundation) (1997-2010); President of the American Inn of Court Foundation (1996-2000); the oldest American Inn of Court in Dallas, Texas bears his name; Fellow, American Bar Foundation; member of the Committee on Ethics 2000, ABA; former Chair, Appellate Judges Conference, ABA; and former member of the Board of Editors, ABA Journal; advisor to the National Center for State Courts on its study of habeas corpus; member of the Board of Overseers, Institute for Civil Justice, RAND; Chair of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules (1993-1996) (appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist).

He worked with the governments of Albania, Republic of South Korea, Brazil, Hong Kong and the Philippines. He has also lectured in France, Austria and the U.K. on numerous occasions.

Highlights

Publications