Justice Molly Meredith Francis has been a T’exas judge for 29 years and license Texas attorney for 39 years. Justice Francis was first elected to a Dallas County misdemeanor court, then appointed by Governor George W. Bush to a felony court. After 11 years on the trial court, Governor Rick Perry appointed her as justice on the Fifth District Court of Appeals sitting in Dallas. For 18 years, Justice Francis authored and participated in the writing of opinions in all types of cases appealed from trial courts in Texas. “Retiring” in January 2019, Justice Francis now sits as a visiting judge in trial courts throughout Texas. And, thanks to Governor Greg Abbott, she is one of 9 members of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice to oversee the operations of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and its 104 prison facilities, 122 probation departments, and the Windham School District that educates Texas prisoners.
During her career, Justice Francis was elected by all Texas judges to chair the Judicial
Section of the State Bar of Texas and the Texas Center for the Judiciary, an organization that provides all judicial education throughout the state for Texas’s 1400-plus judges. Justice Francis is board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in criminal law and criminal appellate law and has served on both the Criminal Appellate and Criminal Law Advisory Committees of the TBLS. She is a 1978 graduate of Baylor University and 1981 graduate of Baylor School of Law. While at Baylor, she was a Vice President and Pledge Trainer of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and Vice President of Student Foundation. Justice Francis was voted Baylor’s Outstanding Senior Woman in 1978.
Justice Francis has two daughters, Meredith and Morgan. Meredith, 32, is a New York University Stern Business School graduate and lives in New York City. Morgan, 30, a University of Alabama graduate, recently received her master’s degree from Southern Methodist University and teaches 4th grade math and science at Wallace Elementary School in Dallas.
