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Plane Crash Claims Life of Former Texas Solicitor General Greg Coleman

By Michael C. Smith

I just saw the tragic news that Greg Coleman died in a plane crash last night in Florida.  For readers that didn't know Greg, he was a partner in YetterColeman in Austin and prior to his service as Texas' first solicitor general (he was the first when then-Attorney General John Cornyn created the position in 1999) he clerked for Judge Edith Jones on the Fifth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Supreme Court.  Greg's practice involved a lot of appearances at the Supreme Court, the most recent of which was on October 13 when he argued on behalf of a Texas district attorney in a DNA evidence case in Skinner v. Switzer.  As the article above notes, he was immensely respected in Texas legal circles, and to paraphrase an observation from a 1919 obituary in the Marshall paper that I have never forgotten, he is the kind of person whose loss the community feels. 

I had the privilege of working with Greg on the O'Connor's Federal Rules * Civil Trials for several years when he was also updating chapters, although we didn't actually meet face to face till sometime later when he and I were on the editorial board for the Litigation Section's Advocate publication that I frequently post about, and I got a chance to benefit from his observations firsthand.  I treasured our time together on the back cover of O'Connor's because I always hoped that people might think I was smarter than I actually am because my picture was next to his, and everybody knew how brilliant Greg was. 

Our prayers go out to Greg's family in this sad time.  We will miss him.

 

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on November 24, 2010 (boomark / email).