Texas' senior appellate judge, Nathan L. Hecht, became chief justice October 1 after Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson left the Court for private practice.

 

Taking his oath from Jefferson in a private ceremony in the Supreme Court Courtroom, Hecht became the state's 27th chief justice.

 

After he left the bench Jefferson announced he was joining the boutique appellate law firm Alexander Dubose & Townsend LLP in its Austin office. The firm name is now Alexander Dubose Jefferson Townsend.

 

In January, Hecht will surpass the late Chief Justice Joe Greenhill as the longest-serving Texas Supreme Court justice. Hecht joined the court in 1989.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed Jeff Brown of Houston as a justice of the Supreme Court of Texas for a term to expire at the next general election.

 

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OCA is pleased to announce the addition of Aurora Zamora to its staff, as our as our agency's Court Services Consultant.

 

Ms. Zamora can come to your courthouse to assist you in evaluating and implementing caseflow management and other administrative programs to help your court run more efficiently. She can also provide on-site training on caseflow management.

 

In addition to providing on-site services, she is available to answer questions and provide technical assistance by phone or email.

 

Services offered include: 

• Evaluation and development of case management strategies.
• Technical assistance on court administration matters, including calendaring procedures, jury management, development of forms, assignment of judges, and caseflow management.
• Training on caseflow management principles, techniques and best practices. 

These services are provided at no cost to courts. However, because of limited travel funds, OCA requests that courts receiving on-site services cover Ms. Zamora's travel costs when possible.

 

Ms. Zamora has 25 years of court management experience. She is the former District Court Administrator for the 38th District Court and a former Court Coordinator for a Child Support Specialty Court. She has considerable experience conducting training on court administration matters, including caseflow management, for entities such as the Texas Center for the Judiciary and Texas Association for Court Administration. Further, she attended the Judicial Administration Program at Michigan State University where she obtained a noncredit certificate.

 

This is a position that OCA previously had. However, due to state budget cuts, funding for the position was eliminated in spring 2010. During the recent session, the Legislature restored the funding. We strongly encourage courts to take advantage of these services.

 

To learn more about the services or to request assistance, please call Aurora Zamora, at 512-463-0976, or e-mail her at Aurora.Zamora@txcourts.gov. 

This month, the TAMES team completed the installation of TAMES in the 13th Court of Appeals (Corpus Christi, Edinburg). This wraps up our appellate case management installations outside of Austin. Later on, the team will deploy TAMES to the Court of Criminal Appeals. The court has indicated they would like to wait on the new system until their new computer equipment arrives later on this year.