State Bar of Texas

The voluntary association spoke for a narrow slice of the profession: mostly urban lawyers, corporate specialists, judges, law professors and appellate practitioners. Of about 4,600 men and 17 women licensed to practice in Texas in 1900, only 315 belonged. In 1884 its rolls showed 328 members, but only 187 had paid dues. A 1903 law required every new lawyer to pass a standard written examination; after it only 90 applicants took the test, and 16 failed. On the eve of the integrated bar, membership stood at about 3,000 of the state's 7,500 lawyers.

What the plaque says

State Bar of Texas On July 15, 1882, a volunteer organization of Texas attorneys known as the Texas Bar Association, was established in Galveston, with Judge Thomas J. Devine as the first president. The forerunner of the State Bar of Texas, the group met annually to address common concerns such as the uniformity of jurisprudence, legislation, the regulation of the conduct of lawyers, and other statewide legal matters. An act of the State Legislature signed by Governor W. Lee O'Daniel in 1939 created the State Bar of Texas. Its purpose was to place all persons practicing law in the state under uniform rules and regulations. After the Bar Association merged with the new state agency in 1940, members of the State Bar, under the direction of first President Angus Wynne, continued to carry out the association's traditions and goals. While the agency's first office was located in the Littlefield Building at Sixth and Congress, it has been at this site since 1953. Guided by an elected board of directors, a president, and president elect, the State Bar is operated on a daily basis by an executive director and a full staff. For over 100 years these professional organizations have played unique roles in the state's legal history. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — steps away
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.3 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.5 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.9 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.

More markers nearby

• Price Daniel — steps away
• Tyler Rose — steps away
• Diocese of Austin — steps away
• Confederate Texas Legislatures — steps away