How do judges of the Supreme Court of Texas reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is partisan election.

Supreme Court of Texas / Joined 2018 / Active

James Davis Blacklock

Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Texas

James Davis Blacklock is a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, serving since 2018. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1980 · age 46
Tenure: Since 2018 · 8 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2018	Supreme Court of Texas	–	–
2019	Supreme Court of Texas	–	–

Education

The University of Texas at Austin	Plan II/History
Yale University

Judicial Record

In our data, Blacklock authored 24 published opinions for the court (2018–2026), plus 2 dissents and 6 concurrences. Most cited: Lujan v. Navistar, Inc. (306 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 22 of these were attributed to Blacklock by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2018	Lujan v. Navistar, Inc.†	555 S.W.3d 79	306
2018	John David Adams v. Starside Custom Builders, Llc†	547 S.W.3d 890	234
2019	in Re Sustainable Texas Oyster Resource Management, L.L.C.†	575 S.W.3d 339	141
2019	in Re Geomet Recycling LLC, Richard Goldberg, Kenneth Goldberg, Josh Applebaum, Alicia McKinney, Eloisa Medina, Lee Wakser, Spencer Lieman, Mikel Shecht, Laura Myers, Henry Jackson, and Kelly Couch†	578 S.W.3d 82	112
2018	Harris County, Texas v. Lori Annab†	547 S.W.3d 609	109
2019	Gerald Godoy v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.†	575 S.W.3d 531	46
2019	Tarrant Regional Water District v. Richard Johnson and Sharkara Johnson, Individually and as Personal Representatives of the Estate of Brandy Johnson†	572 S.W.3d 658	38
2018	Bosque Disposal Sys., LLC v. Parker Cnty. Appraisal Dist.†	555 S.W.3d 92	24
2018	Compass Bank v. Francisco Calleja-Ahedo†	569 S.W.3d 104	9
2026	Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings D/B/A Laboratory Corporation of America v. the State of Texas and Npt Associates· Dissent†	–	0
2026	Champion Food Service, Inc. and Champion Food Service 2, Inc. v. Proalamo Foods, L.L.C. and Procoastal, L.L.C.· Concurrence†	–	0
2026	The State of Texas v. City of McAllen†	–	0
2026	In the Interest of K.N., K.L., K.L., and K.L., Children· Concurrence†	–	0
2026	Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas v. the City of Austin and Austin Transit Partnership Local Government Corporation†	–	0
2026	In Re State of Texas†	–	0

Showing the 15 most-cited of 32 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Supreme Court of Texas reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is partisan election.
Which court is James Davis Blacklock on?: James Davis Blacklock is a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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8 years on the Supreme Court of Texas. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).