Texas Business Court judges and divisions
Eleven divisions exist in statute. Five are funded and sitting, staffed by ten judges appointed for two-year terms and reappointed through 2028. Which division covers a county decides whether the court is available at all, so the map below is worth checking before a venue clause is drafted rather than after.
Five divisions are sitting. Six are not.
Chapter 25A creates eleven divisions of the Texas Business Court, each mapped to an administrative judicial region. Five were funded and opened on September 1, 2024. The other six exist in statute and remain, in the words of § 25A.003, subject to funding through legislative appropriations.
House Bill 40 repealed the sunset provision that would have abolished those six divisions in September 2026. That keeps them alive on paper. It did not appropriate money for them, and no judges have been appointed to them.
| Division | Sits in | Judges | Counties |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | Dallas | Andrea Bouressa · William Whitehill | Collin, Dallas, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Kaufman, Rockwall |
| Third | Austin | Melissa Andrews · Patrick Sweeten | Austin, Bastrop, Bell, Blanco, Bosque, Burnet, Caldwell, Colorado, Comal, Comanche, Coryell, Falls, Fayette, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Hamilton, Hays, Hill, Lampasas, Lavaca, Llano, McLennan, Milam, Navarro, Robertson, San Saba, Travis, Williamson |
| Fourth | San Antonio | Marialyn Barnard · Stacy Rogers Sharp | Aransas, Atascosa, Bee, Bexar, Calhoun, De Witt, Dimmit, Frio, Goliad, Jackson, Karnes, La Salle, Live Oak, Maverick, McMullen, Refugio, San Patricio, Victoria, Webb, Wilson, Zapata, Zavala |
| Eighth | Fort Worth | Jerry Bullard · Brian Stagner | Archer, Clay, Cooke, Denton, Eastland, Erath, Hood, Jack, Johnson, Montague, Palo Pinto, Parker, Somervell, Stephens, Tarrant, Wichita, Wise, Young |
| Eleventh | Houston | Sofia Adrogué · Grant Dorfman | Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Matagorda, Montgomery, Wharton |
Two counties have moved since the court opened. Montgomery County was placed in the Eleventh Division by House Bill 40, effective September 1, 2025. Bastrop County moved from the Second Division to the Third by House Bill 16 in the second called session, effective December 4, 2025. Both are easy to miss because they sit in amendments rather than in the original chapter.
The ten judges
Every judge was appointed by Governor Abbott in June 2024 for a term beginning September 1, 2024. Two sit in each operating division.
| Judge | Division | Background |
|---|---|---|
| Andrea Bouressa | First (Dallas) | Came from the 471st District Court in Collin County, where she also served as Local Administrative District Judge. |
| William Whitehill | First (Dallas) | Former Justice of the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas; led the appellate practice at Condon Tobin. |
| Melissa Andrews | Third (Austin) | Equity partner at Holland & Knight, board certified in civil appellate law; clerked for Judge Don Willett and served as staff attorney to Texas Supreme Court Justice Jeff Boyd. |
| Patrick Sweeten | Third (Austin) | Principal Deputy General Counsel in the Office of the Governor; previously Deputy Attorney General for Special Litigation. |
| Marialyn Barnard | Fourth (San Antonio) | Came from the 73rd District Court in Bexar County after ten years on the Fourth Court of Appeals. |
| Stacy Rogers Sharp | Fourth (San Antonio) | Appellate practitioner and adjunct professor at the University of Texas. Administrative Presiding Judge Pro Tempore. |
| Jerry Bullard | Eighth (Fort Worth) | Shareholder at Adams, Lynch & Loftin, board certified in civil appellate law, member of the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee. |
| Brian Stagner | Eighth (Fort Worth) | Counsel at Kelly Hart & Hallman and adjunct professor of business law at TCU. |
| Sofia Adrogué | Eleventh (Houston) | Partner at Diamond McCarthy; founder and editor of the Texas Business Litigation treatise. |
| Grant Dorfman | Eleventh (Houston) | Former judge of the 334th and 129th District Courts in Harris County and former Deputy First Assistant Attorney General. Administrative Presiding Judge. |
Grant Dorfman serves as Administrative Presiding Judge and Stacy Rogers Sharp as Administrative Presiding Judge Pro Tempore.
All ten judges were reappointed on July 29, 2026 to two-year terms running from September 1, 2026 to September 1, 2028. For a court whose value depends on a small bench developing a consistent body of commercial reasoning, continuity across the first four years is the more important fact than any individual appointment.
Judges sit outside their own division
A judge whose name appears on an opinion is not always a judge of the division where the case was filed. Chapter 25A allows assignment across divisions, and the practice shows up in the court’s own opinion metadata.
For a party, this means the division determines where the case is docketed and where a jury would be drawn, but not necessarily who decides it. For anyone reading the court’s output as a body of precedent, it means opinions should be read by author as much as by division.
What the unfunded divisions mean in practice
The six dark divisions are not an administrative footnote. Under § 25A.006(e), a party to an action filed in a county that is not within an operating division may not remove it to the business court, and neither may the judge of that court. Neither can it be transferred.
So a qualifying dispute filed in Lubbock, Amarillo, El Paso, Beaumont, Tyler or Corpus Christi has no route in, however large and however commercial. The practical consequence is felt at the drafting table rather than in litigation: a venue or forum clause written without regard to the division map can put a contract outside a court the parties assumed they could reach.
The jurisdictional tests themselves are set out on the companion page: Does your case belong in the Texas Business Court?
Common questions
Which division covers my county?
The table above lists every county in the five operating divisions. Hood, Tarrant, Parker, Johnson, Denton, Somervell and Erath counties sit in the Eighth Division in Fort Worth, which covers north central Texas.
Are all eleven divisions open?
No. Five are funded and sitting: Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Houston. The remaining six exist in statute but have never been funded or staffed. House Bill 40 removed the sunset that would have abolished them, so they can be opened by a future appropriation.
How long do the judges serve?
Business court judges serve two-year terms by gubernatorial appointment rather than by election. All ten were reappointed on July 29, 2026 for terms running to September 1, 2028.
Can a judge from another division hear my case?
Yes. Chapter 25A permits assignment across divisions and the court uses it. Your division still determines docketing and the county for a jury trial.
My county is not in an operating division. What are my options?
The business court is not available to you at present. Section 25A.006(e) blocks removal or transfer from a county outside an operating division. A qualifying case proceeds in district court, and if it is appealed it goes to the regional court of appeals rather than the Fifteenth.
Do these judges hear anything other than business cases?
House Bill 40 allows an active business court judge to sit in district and county courts within the division, which gives the presiding judges flexibility when the business docket is light.
The map matters most when you are drafting, not when you are filing.