Nathan Hecht served on the Supreme Court of Texas for 36 years before retiring as chief justice on December 31, 2024. First elected to the court in 1988, he served longer than any other justice in the court’s history. He was re-elected four times and then twice as chief justice, in 2014 and 2020. Hecht earlier served on the Texas Court of Appeals and the District Court of Dallas County. Nationally, he served on the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States and was the longest-serving president of the Conference of Chief Justices.
Before joining the bench, Hecht worked as a partner at Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely in Dallas, clerked for Judge Roger Robb of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Hecht earned a B.A. in philosophy from Yale University and a J.D. from Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law. Hecht is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a council member and life member of the American Law Institute, and a member of the Texas Philosophical Society. He delivered the Institute of Judicial Administration’s Brennan Lecture on State Courts and Social Justice at NYU Law in 2019.
