Greg Abbott appoints former solicitor general Kyle Hawkins to the Texas Supreme Court

[In It to Win It]

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/24/texas-supreme-court-kyle-hawkins-solicitor-general-abbott/

Former Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins has been appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Gov. Greg Abbott. He will replace Justice Jeff Boyd, who retired in June.

Hawkins served as Texas’ top appellate attorney for two and a half years, representing the state in high-profile cases at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court.

He resigned from that role in 2021, soon after Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the results of the 2020 election, which notably lacked Hawkins’ signature. That case was swiftly dismissed by the Supreme Court.

But that doesn’t seem to have slowed his ascent, as he joined former Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller in arguing high-profile cases in private practice. Earlier this year, he served in the solicitor general’s office at the U.S. Department of Justice for a three-month period, according to his LinkedIn. While there, he argued at the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the federal government that states should be allowed to remove Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs.