(Photo by Kathy Anderson/ABA Journal)
Some people talk about giving up their luxurious lifestyles to help those in need.
In 1999, Roy Ferguson actually did it.
He and his wife sold their Mercedes and their Houston house and purchased a used four-cylinder truck. They then moved to Marfa, a town of just under 2,000 in an ultrarural part of West Texas about 60 miles from the Mexican border, landing at a ranch with no air conditioning.
Working out of a shuttered hotel, Ferguson practiced what he calls “community law,” helping locals with civil and family law matters. Thirteen years later, Ferguson won the judgeship for the 394th Judicial District Court, the state’s largest judicial district, covering five counties in far-west Texas.
Immediately after taking the bench, Ferguson noticed the length of time it took per case.
“Because there are so few lawyers, they end up taking on more clients than they can help,” he says. “The result is that in a large scheme over time, the cases slow down.”
Ferguson visited his county courthouses and personally navigated every case, and he discovered that in a nine-month period, three counties had disposed of only 14 criminal cases total.
He implemented a streamlined case management process that dramatically sped up timelines, and in 2017, Ferguson secured a grant from the Texas Indigent Commission to create the Far West Texas Regional Public Defender’s Office, which serves the entire district.
On the civil side, Ferguson developed a template requiring cases to be disposed within specific deadlines. He also effectively eliminated stacking trial weeks. Soon, Ferguson’s civil docket dwindled, so he looked at other improvements he could make. He created a website and a new process for self-represented cases, and the average length of a pro se divorce went from 18 months down to 61 days, he says.
The Hon. Dean Rucker, a senior judge in Midland, Texas, considers one of Ferguson’s most innovative adjustments to be his protocol for recording civil and criminal court proceedings.
“For large judicial districts in Texas like the 394th District Court, these procedures, pioneered by Judge Ferguson and his able court coordinator/court recorder, are a welcome answer to a difficult situation,” Rucker says.
Ferguson likens himself to a teacher, saying that by “making the process better,” people will develop more trust with and faith in the legal system.
His teaching style was evident globally in 2021 when Ferguson explained to an attorney stuck behind a cat filter during a Zoom hearing—how to revert to human form. The video, nicknamed “I am not a cat” after said attorney felt the need to issue such a disclaimer, went viral and served as a representation of the early days of the pandemic.
Ferguson, 56, announced his retirement from the bench in 2023, but will remain on multiple committees and commissions, allowing him to help other judges make similar improvements.
“My belief is, if you do something you do because it’s always been done, you’re wrong,” he says. “Always ask, ‘Why?’”
Joan Howarth and Deborah Jones Merritt
Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners
