Justice, Fifteenth Court of Appeals, Place 3

April Farris has been a justice on the Fifteenth Court of Appeals since September 1, 2024, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott¹³. She previously served on the First Court of Appeals in Houston, where she was appointed in 2021 and elected in 2022, and earlier practiced appellate law and served as an assistant solicitor general¹. She is the Republican nominee for Place 3 and faces Democrat Marc M. Meyer²³.

• Justice, Fifteenth Court of Appeals, since September 1, 2024¹
• Justice, First Court of Appeals (Houston), appointed 2021 and elected 2022, serving until 2024¹⁴
• Partner, Yetter Coleman LLP, handling complex appellate litigation¹
• Assistant Solicitor General, State of Texas¹
• Law clerk to Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; JD, Harvard Law School, 2009¹
• Appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott to the Fifteenth Court of Appeals effective September 1, 2024¹³.
• Bar poll: State Bar of Texas 2026 Judicial Poll (non-binding preference poll of bar members, taken before the March 3 primary): April Farris 1,878 votes, Marc M. Meyer 1,417¹³¹⁴.
• Attorney General reporting rules for large-county prosecutors (Paxton v. Garza, December 30, 2025): joined the unanimous panel opinion written by Justice Field, which held that Government Code section 41.006 does not give the Attorney General rulemaking authority, upheld a temporary injunction blocking the rules for the prosecutors who sued, and reversed the injunction to the extent it covered anyone else⁵⁶⁷. The trial court ruled the rules invalid on May 7, 2026, and on May 29, 2026 the Supreme Court of Texas, on the parties' joint motion, vacated the appeals court judgment and dismissed that appeal as moot⁷⁸.
• Attorney General's lawsuit against Beto O'Rourke and his group Powered by People (In re Powered by People): member of the three-justice panel that in August 2025 paused a Tarrant County temporary injunction hearing and expedited discovery order⁹, and that in an unsigned September 12, 2025 order stayed the trial court's August 15 restraining order on the group's fundraising, stating that on the limited evidence offered it would be an unconstitutional prior restraint of political activity (relief was denied as to a later August 25 order)¹⁰. On September 8, 2026, when the majority held that the State's dropping of its injunction claims made most of the challenge moot and vacated the restraining order¹¹, Farris wrote a partial dissent: she agreed with most of the opinion but would have held that the order's validity was still a live issue because of the State's pending contempt motion, and that the order was void and an unconstitutional prior restraint¹².