Personal Biography... (Who I am)
Educational Background ?
My educational career began in the Arlington Public School System. Upon graduating with honors from Arlington High School at Arlington Texas, I was selected as a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist. Immediately after graduating high school, I enrolled at the University of Texas at Arlington, where my major was Economics and my minor was in Spanish.
While attending college I participated in United States Army R.O.T.C. and the Insurgent Team. As a junior, I obtained the highest score of my class during a 6 week period of R.O.T.C. summer camp at Fort Riley, Kansas, and was selected as a Distinguished Military Student.
During my college career, I was a member of the Pi Sigma Epsilon professional fraternity and a member of the honor society in economics. I was also selected to Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities.
In 1972 I graduated with honors, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. I was designated a Distinguished Military Graduate and received my officer commission in the United States Army as a second lieutenant. I served in the United States Army Reserve until 1983, obtaining the rank of Captain.
I attended Southern Methodist University Law School and received my Juris Doctor Degree in 1976. Directly after graduation from law school, I immediately took the first available Texas bar examination and scored in the top 25% of those participating. I was licensed to practice before the Supreme Court of Texas in November 1976.
I engaged in the private practice of law at Arlington, Texas from 1976 to 1979, and at Fort Worth, Texas from 1979 to the present.
In 1982 I was admitted to practice by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas and in 1983 I was admitted to practice in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit located in New Orleans, Louisiana, which is the appeals court for all federal courts in Texas and surrounding states. In 1996 I was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.
During the more than 20 years of my practice I have had the pleasure and opportunity to practice in the state courts of over 27 Texas counties, including all counties located around the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex area, other major metropolitan counties such as Harris (Houston), Bexar (San Antonio), and Travis (Austin), and counties as far away as Val Verde County in the Rio Grande Valley, Hutchinson County in the panhandle and San Augustine County in deep East Texas.