Federal Judiciary

Investiture of Judge Mazzant set for this Thursday in Sherman

By Michael C. Smith

The official investiture of the Eastern District's newest judge, Magistrate Judge Amos Mazzant of Sherman will take place at 3pm on Thursday of this week in Sherman.   The district judges of the Eastern District appointed then-Justice Mazzant, who previously had served on the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas since 2004, on January 9.
Judge Mazzant is a familiar face to Eastern District practitioners - after graduating from Baylor Law School in 1990 he clerked for retired U.S. District Judge Paul Brown in Sherman, as well as former magistrate judge Robert Faulkner, and Judge Faulkner's successor Judge Don Bush.  He also served as president of the Texas Young Lawyers Association (TYLA) in 2001, and was named Baylor Law School Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year in 2002. 
Judge Mazzant was not the only former Eastern District law clerk assuming a bench this spring.  I had the pleasure in February of attending the investiture of my successor as Judge Sam B. Hall, Jr.'s law clerk, Jill R. Willis as a new state district judge in January in the 429th in Collin County.  (Clerking for Judge Hall has anti-aging side effects, by the way.  It really has been sixteen years since we were clerks).
Nor is Jill, er, Judge Willis, the only other former ED clerk elevated to the bench recently.  Brian Gary of Sherman was also named to the 397th state court bench in adjacent Grayson County last summer.  Brian and I were in the same law school class at Baylor, and he clerked for Judge Richard Schell, who was in Beaumont at the time, but has since relocated to Plano.

Good to see these judges on the bench!

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on May 11, 2009 (boomark / email).