Published; Nov. 6th, 2019

The Houston appellate bar is reeling from the news that First Court of Appeals Justice Laura Carter Higley has resigned.

Her resignation came two weeks after her sons, Garrett and Robert Higley, revealed in a court proceeding that the justice was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in early October after suffering from a neurocognitive disorder for the past two years.

Justices and staff on the First Court have lost a good judge, according to Clerk of the Court Chris Prine.

“We’re all sad to see her retire,” he said. “She put in a lot of good years of service.”

Higley’s sons have asked a probate court to appoint them as their mother’s guardian. They claimed in an Oct. 17 application for appointment of a permanent guardian that Laura Higley in 2017 was diagnosed with a neurocognitive disorder, which deteriorated rapidly. On Oct. 9, her doctor diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s disease. The justice’s memory is failing and she can’t recall conversations, nor handle her work duties on the First Court, the sons alleged.

Higley was elected as a Republican to the First Court in 2002, and assumed the bench in 2003. She earned her law degree from the University of Houston Law Center in 1990, and spent her whole legal career before the bench as an attorney with Baker Botts, where she practiced pension law, health care law and executive compensation.

“I have been honored to serve the state of Texas for 17 years as associate justice on the First Court of Appeals,” Higley wrote in an Oct. 31 resignation letter, which Gov. Greg Abbott’s office received and accepted Monday. “I have written more than 70 opinions a year and served with some very fine judges.”

The Alzheimer’s diagnosis is a shock to attorneys who practiced before Higley and the justices who sat beside her on the bench.

Former First Court Justice Terry Jennings, who became close friends with Higley after serving alongside her from 2003 to 2018, said that he had lunch with her two or three months ago and she seemed normal. Although he’d noticed she had memory lapses, they did not seem out of the ordinary, so he attributed it to normal aging.

Higley is 72.

Her work did not decline over the past two years, Jennings added. He recalls sitting with her on an appellate panel during a 2018 oral argument where she asked good questions. She authored an excellent opinion in late 2018 that reached the right result by following the law and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law, he said.

“I enjoyed working with her so much and valued her friendship and valued her as a colleague,” Jennings said. “Lawyers viewed her as a judge in the tradition of Sandra Day O’Connor. She was a moderate conservative judge. She was never afraid to rule in favor of a deserving plaintiff or deserving criminal defendant. There are some judges that are very ideological, and she was not one. She was a very reasonable judge.”

Appellate litigator Kent Rutter, who practiced before Higley, said she was the First Court’s “unsung hero” because of the seriousness with which she handled cases, always studying and following the law wherever it led. Rutter said he didn’t notice any changes in the justice over the past two years.

“I do know she was tremendously devoted to her work in the court and she is the kind of person who would want to do her job, regardless of any personal difficulties,” said Rutter, partner in Haynes and Boone in Houston. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that as long as she believed she could continue with her work on the court, that she would want to do so.”

Higley’s attorney in the guardianship case, Russell Hall, shareholder in Russell W. Hall & Associates in Bellaire, didn’t return a call seeking comment before deadline.