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 2003 / Served to 2009

Scott A. Brister

Justice, Supreme Court of Texas

Scott A. Brister was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, who joined the court in 2003. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1955 · age 71
Tenure: 2003–2009 · 5 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2003	Supreme Court of Texas	–	–

Education

Duke University
Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Brister authored 61 published opinions for the court (2004–2009), plus 14 dissents and 19 concurrences. Most cited: City of Keller v. Wilson (10,088 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. 39 of these were attributed to Brister 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
2005	City of Keller v. Wilson	168 S.W.3d 802	10,088
2005	Valence Operating Co. v. Dorsett· Concurrence†	164 S.W.3d 656	3,800
2006	Tony Gullo Motors I, L.P. and Brien Garcia v. Nury Chapa†	212 S.W.3d 299	1,196
2006	State v. Shumake· Dissent†	199 S.W.3d 279	1,134
2004	Harris County v. Sykes· Concurrence†	136 S.W.3d 635	1,020
2005	Michiana Easy Livin' Country, Inc. v. Holten	168 S.W.3d 777	1,002
2006	Reata Construction Corp. v. City of Dallas· Concurrence†	197 S.W.3d 371	710
2008	In Re McAllen Medical Center, Inc.	275 S.W.3d 458	638
2008	Perry Homes v. Cull	258 S.W.3d 580	603
2009	MBM Financial Corp. v. Woodlands Operating Co.	292 S.W.3d 660	520
2007	Central Ready Mix Concrete Co. v. Islas	228 S.W.3d 649	505
2005	In Re Weekley Homes, L.P.	180 S.W.3d 127	447
2004	Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. v. Armstrong	145 S.W.3d 131	429
2008	Leland v. Brandal· Dissent†	257 S.W.3d 204	398
2006	Fiess v. State Farm Lloyds	202 S.W.3d 744	387

Showing the 15 most-cited of 94 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 was Scott A. Brister on?: Scott A. Brister was a 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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5 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).