austinbar.org JULY/AUGUST 2022 | VOLUME 31, NUMBER 6
Looking Back and Looking Forward Judge Lora Livingston Speaks on Her Career, Accomplishments, and Retirement BY JUDGE LORA J. LIVINGSTON
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hen I first started practicing law, a lawyer’s word was a lawyer’s bond, a handshake was as good as a written contract, and civility was a practice, not an aspiration. These were some of the golden rules “back in the day.” I know, I know—that was a long time ago and things have certainly changed. I can only hope that the bar finds its way back to these golden principles. Over the past few decades, the law has undergone significant changes. Consider changes in tort law (reform is in the eye of the beholder, so I won’t use that descriptor here) and workers’ compensation law. It’s amazing how the laws designed to compensate an injured or deceased human being have changed over time. I learned years ago that the purpose of civil remedies—and civil courts, for that matter—is to put injured parties in their rightful position. Perhaps some concessions have been made since then. Now it makes me wonder how, or if, our society values human life. Recent gun legislation continues to confront
Judge Livingston and her husband, Eric Kennedy, on the set of the Stephen Colbert Show.
The creation of the Travis County SelfHelp Center, located in the Travis County Law Library, stands out as one of the things I am most proud of during my tenure on the bench. … I leave with a sense of accomplishment. I leave feeling that I fulfilled a great purpose. And I leave with enormous pride. It has been an honor to serve this community. me with this question. Consider, also, changes in family law. When I first started practicing law, most divorces involved only two parents and their joint offspring. Not so today! The family tree has been replaced by the family flow chart
since the branches no longer have marriage at the root. And then there is the Texas Citizens Participation Act. I’ll just stop there and say, “no comment.” This is to say many substantive areas of the law have changed drastically during my career. Of course, significant changes have been made to procedural rules and practice as well. I remember when the discovery rules were still called “new.” These new rules were designed to stem the unprofessional conduct of the “Rambo” lawyer and yet, some might argue that these cumbersome rules supplied Rambo with additional ammunition. I have been absolutely amazed by the number of self-represented litigants we encounter each year. I can’t remember more than a handful of cases in which even one side was self-represented when I began to practice law. Today, many cases involve self-represented litigants on both sides, even in jury trials. Rather than debate the many facets of this phenomenon here, I’ll simply say that I am extremely proud of the way in which the local legal community has stepped up to meet the challenges this reality continued on page 15
