Gov. Greg Abbott appointed longtime Lubbock prosecutor Laura Beth Fossett as judge of the 137th District Court on Aug. 10, filling a vacancy that opened just three days earlier when Judge John "Trey" McClendon retired after nearly 16 years on the bench. The appointment lets Fossett begin serving immediately rather than waiting for the seat to sit empty through the fall, and it comes with an unusual wrinkle: she had already won the seat outright in the ballot box before the governor made it official.
McClendon, whose legal career spans more than three decades, announced his retirement effective Aug. 7. Before joining the 137th District Court, he worked for the Seventh Court of Appeals in Amarillo and the State Bar of Texas, and served as a Lubbock County prosecutor. On the bench, he presided over felony cases and spent nearly 12 years running the Lubbock County DWI Recovery Court, a specialty docket aimed at addressing repeat drunk-driving offenses through supervised treatment rather than straight incarceration.
Fossett brings a similar background in Lubbock's criminal justice system to the role. She spent the past 14 years as an assistant district attorney in the Lubbock Criminal District Attorney's Office before running for the seat. "For the past fourteen years, I have had the privilege of serving the people of Lubbock County, and I am deeply honored for the opportunity to continue that service as Judge of the 137th District Court," Fossett said following her appointment. "Lubbock County is home to me and my family, and I look forward to continuing my service to this community and honoring the trust and responsibility that comes with this office."
Because Fossett had already won the Republican primary for the 137th District Court earlier this year and drew no opponent in the November general election, Abbott's appointment functions less as a contested political decision than as a bridge: it lets her start hearing cases immediately rather than leaving the docket without a judge for months until her full term would otherwise begin Jan. 1, 2027. Texas law allows the governor to fill judicial vacancies by appointment between elections, with the appointee typically serving until the next general election — but here, since Fossett was already the certain incoming judge, the appointment simply accelerates the transition by roughly five months.
For Lubbock County readers, the practical effect is continuity: the 137th District Court, which handles felony criminal cases and other district-level matters for the county, doesn't sit without a judge during the gap between McClendon's retirement and the new term. It's also a reminder of how much turnover in Texas's trial courts happens through this appointment process rather than contested elections alone — vacancies created by retirement, resignation, or death get filled by gubernatorial appointment far more often than voters realize, which is part of why this site's candidate checklists encourage readers to pay attention not just to open-seat races but to who's already sitting on the bench in their county.