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elcome to the Texas Center for the Judiciary, the primary provider of specialized judicial education and training for Texas appellate, district, and county court-at-law judges.

The Texas Center for the Judiciary was established in 1973 by the members of the Judicial Section of the State Bar of Texas to provide continuing judicial education programs for the state’s judiciary and supportive personnel. Since that time, the Texas Center has offered continuing educational programs for judges, court support personnel, district and county clerks, appellate clerks, administrative law judges, and multi-disciplinary groups.

The Texas Center pursues its mission, Judicial Excellence Through Education, by providing leadership in education and training so that a qualified and knowledgeable judiciary may administer justice with fairness, efficiency, and integrity. The Texas Center has been recognized nationally, as well as by the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Texas, and the State Bar of Texas for excellence in judicial education.

The goal of continuing judicial education is to maintain and improve the professional competency of all judicial branch employees and enhance the performance of the judicial system as a whole. Our website is designed to promote that goal. We welcome you and trust you will find these resources useful.

Mari Kay Bickett, Executive Director

Did you know?

Mathew Duncan Ector
(1822-1879)

Presiding Judge, Texas Court of Appeals, 1876-1879

Mathew Duncan Ector was born in Putnam County, Georgia in 1822, studied law there, served a term as a state legislator, and was widowed for the first time in 1848. By 1850, he was residing in Texas.
Ector settled in Henderson, where he studied law under Judge William Wright Morris. The following year he was admitted to the bar, opened a law office, and married a second time. In 1855 he became the editor of the Henderson Democrat and was elected to the Texas legislature, serving in the sixth legislative session. He was again widowed in 1859.
During the Civil War, Ector enlisted as a private, but rose to the rank of general. He was discharged in 1864 because he was wounded in action and his leg was amputated just below the knee. He married for a third time that year.
He returned to Henderson and became a district judge, but was removed the following year as an "impediment to Reconstruction." He relocated to Marshall, where he practiced law.
In 1875, under the Constitutional Convention of that year, Ector was nominated and elected a judge of the Court of Appeals. When the court was organized in May 1876, Ector's fellow judges, C.M. Winkler and John P. White, chose Ector to be the court's presiding judge. Ector died October 29, 1879 while in attendance at the court's Tyler term, and was buried in Marshall. He was remembered by his colleagues for his generosity, dignity, kindness, and strength of character.

Information courtesy the Justices of Texas Project, Tarleton Law Library, University of Texas at Austin.

Tips for Texas Courts - Swine Flu Response

Atwitter about Twitter

By now you’ve probably heard about this thing called “Twitter,” and maybe you're wondering what it is. In the third of this three-part series on social media, we’ll try to take a little bit of the mystery out of “twittering” for you. (If you missed part one on social networking, find it here. Part two about websites and blogging is here).

The short explanation is that Twitter is considered a micro-blog that asks users the question, “What are you doing?” Answers are limited to 140 characters or less. Some people take the question literally, and detail minutia about their everyday lives that no one but their mothers may find interesting. Others use the limitation of space to construct pithy replies or observations. These messages are called “tweets.” The more interesting people find your “tweets,” the more they become interested in “following” you. To “follow” someone is similar to “friending” them on Facebook. They become part of your network, and their tweets show up on your home page.

There’s even a Mr. Tweet – an application within Twitter that takes note of who you’re following and recommends other people that you may enjoy following. People can also follow you. The more followers, the larger your network, and consequently the more popular your tweets are assumed to be. Actor Ashton Kutcher recently made headlines when he challenged CNN in a race to see who could top one million followers first. He won. Five weeks later his followers doubled to two million.

Currently there are more than 14 million users of Twitter – and it’s not all teenagers. According to UK Global Mail, the average Twitterer is 31. Twitter was introduced at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin in March 2007. In that short time, the appeal has grown so widely and the uses have broadened so much that this past legislative session members of the Texas Legislature were tweeting from the floor. All the major TV networks send out regular tweets as do many companies who use tweets as a way to announce special deals or updates on products.

How it works

First sign up for an account (www.twitter.com). You choose a username, answer a few simple questions, and then you can start commenting. To reply directly to someone requires the use of the @ sign. Because of the limitation on space, users who wish to direct attention to a news article or a page on the web typically shorten the URL by using tinyurl.com or snipurl.com. If you have an iPhone, you can use Tweetie, which is the adaptive Twitter app for that phone. Mac users can purchase a third-party app called Twitterrific that allows them to view Twitter feeds and post tweets from their desktop rather than signing in to the website. Twhirl is a desktop app available for both PC and Mac computers which notifies you of new messages, connects to multiple Twitter accounts, allows you to search for direct replies to you, allows you to shorten long URLs, lets you update photos via Tweetpic, and more.

Tweetdeck is a Twitter client that organizes your Twitter and Facebook networks. You can tweet directly from Tweetdeck or use it to shorten URLs and upload Tweetpics.

Passing fad?

It’s possible that Twitter is a passing fad, but so far the growth continues to be the fastest among all social networks. Zappos’ employees are using it to communicate with each other, celebrities (and politicians) are using it to communicate with their fans, and in May the first “TwitterCon” (TWTRCON SF 09) took place in San Francisco to discuss how to create a Twitter business strategy. So for the time being at least, Twitter is here to stay.

Mark Your Calendar!

As a nonprofit entity, the Texas Center for the Judiciary relies in part on the financial support of the Texas judiciary to provide the highest and best educational curriculum in the most advantageous learning environment possible. Your donations help us do that to the best of our ability. Thank you in advance for your support.

Associates Judges Conference
July 6-8, 2009

DWI Court Team Training
July 13-16, 2009

For other upcoming conferences,
check our Conference/Events page.