In 1986, when Jim Jordan was only 34 years old, Governor Mark White appointed him as Presiding Judge of the 44th District Court, Dallas County. This gubernatorial appointment demonstrated the trust in Judge Jordan’s strong courtroom skills and steady judicial demeanor many had in him then and many more in the legal community have developed toward him in the intervening twenty years of his legal career. Jim Jordan was elected to Presiding Judge of the 160th Judicial District in 2006. The following year the 39 District Judges of Dallas County elected him their Administrative District Judge.
Jordan attended law school in Lubbock at Texas Tech. He was the first of his family to earn a law degree and practice law. His first-year classmates elected him as their representative to the Student/Faculty committee. He served on the student newspaper and was a member of the Moot Court Board his senior year.
During law school, Jordan supported himself by delivering commercial laundry for a local company, and serving as a summer intern at the Dallas County District Attorney’s office headed by the legendary Henry Wade. During his last year of school he clerked for a small, four lawyer, Lubbock law firm. After graduating law school in 1977, he worked briefly in Lubbock for a local trial attorney before returning to Dallas to open his own office.
Jordan opened his practice in the Katy Building across the street from the Dallas County Courthouse. He had a general litigation practice, gaining legal street smarts around the courthouse.
After establishing his practice, Jordan formed a partnership with Gene Roelke, a transactional lawyer who later retired to Sherman, Texas. Jordan then went to work as an Assistant City Attorney for the City of Garland. In 1984, only seven years out of law school, Jordan earned certification as a Civil Trial Specialist from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He returned to private practice, forming a partnership with Michael Linz. Soon thereafter, Jordan was elected President of the Bar Association in Garland, his hometown.
When Governor White appointed Jordan to a vacancy on the district bench, Democrats were rapidly losing favor in Dallas County. Despite winning the endorsement of both major newspapers — the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times Herald — and of almost every other endorsing organization in Dallas County, Jordan was defeated in the election as part of the completion of the Republican Party’s sweep of Dallas County.
Jordan went back to private practice with the firm of Riddle & Brown (later Middleberg, Riddle and Gianna), a mid-sized civil firm with offices in Dallas and New Orleans. Over the next two decades, Jim not only continued trying lawsuits at the courthouse, but he began teaching trial skills courses at Southern Methodist University and Louisiana State University law schools and for young attorneys attending the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA). He later opened his own firm with several other attorneys. In 2000, he was one of four attorneys recruited to open the Dallas office of Shannon, Gracey, Ratliff & Miller, LLP.
Throughout his legal career, Jordan has been active in the profession, as a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), the Texas Association of Defense Counsel (TADC), the William “Mac” Taylor Inn of Court, and serving as President of the Garland Bar Association. At the time of his election to the 160th District Court in 2006, Jordan was serving a second term on the District 6a Grievance Committee, the body that hears complaints against and disciplines attorneys.
