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Editor's Column

A Primary Responsibility of Lawyers
By: Leif Olson

It seems like only yesterday that we finished campaign season, but elections are upon us again. Both TYLA and the State Bar will soon be telling you about their candidates for President-elect, positions that are critical to maintaining our status as a self-governing profession.

More important to our communities in general, though, are our state and local elections, including the primary for which early voting is currently open.

Many voters, particularly in our state’s urban areas, simply cannot keep up with all of the candidates. In statewide elections alone—U.S. Senate, all six state executive offices, Railroad Commissioner, and seven seats on our two high courts—Texas Republicans will have to choose among 48 different candidates, few of them incumbents and only one running without a primary opponent. The electronic-voting system in Harris County, where I live, will show some voters a primary-election ballot that is more than ten screens long. When this November’s general election arrives, Harris County voters will have to choose among candidates for about 60 county-wide benches; in Bexar, about 30—and many of those races feature contested primaries in one or both parties.

The impact of these numbers isn’t limited to large cities. Though the raw numbers are lower in counties that are smaller (or are dominated by one party), that robs neither the positions nor the elections to fill them of their effects on our lives. And these numbers alone don’t tell the whole story—they don’t count justices of the peace; justices on the courts of appeals; or other offices that affect the judiciary, like district and county clerks.

Lawyering is more than just a business, a trade, or a craft—it is a profession. Part of our duty as practitioners in that profession is to promote and improve the administration of justice. Many of us appear regularly before the fellow Texans who serve in our judiciary; because of that, we are often asked by others for recommendations about the best candidates for that service. I hope that you will take the time to examine each candidate on whom you and your neighbors will be voting and take seriously the honor with which you have been entrusted—to advise fellow Texans on whom they should confer the power to shut down a business, to dispose of precious family heirlooms, to separate parent from child, to sentence a person to die.

Elections are important, and we lawyers have special knowledge that can help our fellow Texans cast their ballots more wisely. I hope you’ll do your best to help them do so.

Leif Olson is a TYLA Director and the principal of The Olson Firm, PLLC. He practices appellate and other complex litigation and is certified as a specialist in Civil Appellate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.