Court History

October 4, 1972, to October 25, 1982

Joe Greenhill was born in Houston on July 14, 1914. He graduated from San Jacinto High School in Houston and afterward received B.A., and B.B.A. degrees from the University of Texas, and an L.L.B Degree from the University of Texas Law School, where he graduated at the top of his class. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the editor of the Cactus (the University of Texas yearbook), and a student editor of the Texas Law Review. Judge Greenhill received a Doctor of Law degree (honorary) from Southern Methodist University. He was selected Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin (1974), the University of Texas Law School (1977), and the University of Texas College of Business Administration (1977).

Judge Greenhill commenced his legal career as a briefing attorney for the Texas Supreme Court, working with Chief Justice James Alexander and Associate Justices John Sharp and Richard Critz. During World War II, he served 4 years on active duty, first in naval intelligence, then as Executive Officer on a fleet minesweeper in the forward area in the Pacific. As First Assistant Attorney General of Texas from 1948 to 1950, he tried and handled appeals for many major cases, including several argued before the United States Supreme Court.

He was a partner in the firm of Graves, Dougherty & Greenhill, Austin, from 1950 until October 1957, when he was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Price Daniel. His tenure, capped by service as chief justice from October 1972 to October 1982, was the longest in the history of the state's highest tribunal. After retirement from the Supreme Court he became Of Counsel with Baker Botts in Austin. Judge Greenhill was Executive Director, then Executive Director Emeritus of the Texas Bar Foundation. 

He was a member and former president of the Texas Supreme Count Historical Society and of the Philosophical Society of Texas. He is the honoree of the Chief Justice Greenhill Presidential Scholarship in Law by the University of Texas Law School and the Chief Justice Joe Greenhill Scholarship by the Texas Wesleyan School of Law, Fort Worth, which provide scholarships for law students each year. He was co-incorporator of the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism. Judge Greenhill's years as Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court were distinguished by transformation in Texas negligence law, a breakthrough he engineered to allow greater alternative dispute resolution, and his championing expansion of the state's courts of appeals' jurisdiction to ease years of backlogs at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Joe Greenhill died in Austin on February 11, 2011.

From an obituary published in the February 13, 2011 edition of the Dallas Morning News.