Jeff Brown (judge)


Jeffrey Vincent Brown is a District Judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas and former Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.

Early life and education

Brown's father was a police officer. He became an Eagle Scout at age 16. In 1988, Brown graduated from Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, Texas. He earned his bachelor's degree in English from the University of Texas and his J.D. degree with high honors from the University of Houston Law Center, at which he served as one of the editors of the Houston Law Review. He served as a law clerk to Texas Supreme Court Justices Jack Hightower and Greg Abbott, the subsequent governor of Texas. He became certified in civil trial law and practiced with the Houston firm of Baker Botts L.L.P.

Judicial career

From 2007 to 2013, he was a justice on Houston's 14th Court of Appeals. Prior to that, he was the judge of the 55th Texas State District Court.
Brown ran unsuccessfully for the Place 3 position on the Texas Supreme Court in the 2010 Republican primary. He finished in fifth place with 188,238 votes.
Brown ran in a 2014 special election in order to keep his position on the Texas Supreme Court. In the Republican primary election held on March 4, 2014, Brown defeated an intraparty challenge from Joe Richard Pool Jr., son of the late U.S. Representative Joe R. Pool, who in the 1960s held Texas' 3rd congressional district seat. Brown received 820,582 votes to Pool's 320,558.
In the November 4, 2014, general election, Brown defeated the Republican-turned-Democrat Lawrence E. Meyers. Brown polled 2,772,056 votes to Meyers's 1,677,341. Another 146,511 votes went to the Libertarian Party nominee, Mark Ash.
Brown won election to a full term on the Texas Supreme Court in 2018. With 4,388,052 votes, he defeated Democrat Kathy Cheng, who polled 3,777,468.
His service on the Texas Supreme Court ended on September 4, 2019, when he was commissioned as a federal district judge.

Federal judicial service

On March 8, 2019, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Brown to serve as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. On March 11, 2019, President Trump nominated Brown to the seat vacated by Judge Melinda Harmon, who took senior status on March 31, 2018. On April 10, 2019, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On May 9, 2019, his nomination was reported out of committee by a party-line 12–10 vote. On July 30, 2019, the Senate voted 51–37 to invoke cloture on his nomination. On July 31, 2019, his nomination was confirmed by a vote of 50–40. He received his judicial commission on September 4, 2019. He was sworn into office on September 11, 2019.

Personal life

Brown and his wife, Susannah, a former schoolteacher, have three children. They reside in Galveston.
In 2016, he was awarded the Outstanding Eagle Scout Award by the National Eagle Scout Association.