Justice Nathan L. Hecht was elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1988 and reelected in 1994, 2000 and 2006. He is the senior Texas appellate judge in active service.

In 2000 he was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules for the Judicial Conference of the United States. he served in that capacity until 2006.

Hecht began his judicial service in 1981 when he was appointed to the 95th District Court of Dallas County. He was elected to that bench in 1982 and reelected in 1984. In l986 he was elected to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas at Dallas, where he served until his election to the Supreme Court.

Justice Hecht is a member of the American Law Institute, the Texas Philosophical Society, and a Fellow of the American, Texas, and Dallas Bar Foundations. He received the Southern Methodist University School of Law “Distinguished Alumni Award for Judicial Service” in 2000, the “Hatton W. Sumners Foundation Distinguished Public Service Award” in 2004. He has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

Justice Hecht earned his B.A. at Yale University with honors in philosophy, and graduated cum laude from the Southern Methodist University School of Law, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and an editor for the Southwestern Law Journal.

He served as law clerk to Judge Roger Robb of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and is a former lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve JAGC. He practiced general litigation with the Dallas firm of Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely, and was a shareholder in that firm before his appointment of the bench.

His term ends December 31, 2012.