Alan Albright
Alan D Albright (born 1959) is a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. He was formerly a United States Magistrate Judge of the same court. Albright oversees a significant portion of patent litigation within the United States. In 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit repeatedly rebuked him in a string of opinions for failing to transfer cases to more apt jurisdictions. A quarter of all patent lawsuits in the US are heard by Albright, who has been criticized for ignoring binding case law . Biography. Albright earned his Bachelor of Arts with honors from Trinity University and his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law. He taught trial advocacy at the University of Texas School of Law for several years as an adjunct. Before becoming a district judge, Albright was a partner in the Austin office of Bracewell LLP, where his practice focused on intellectual property law. He was in private practice at other firms in Austin from 1999 to 2015. Federal judicial service. Magistrate judge and nomination. Albright served as a United States Magistrate Judge of the United States District  Court for the Western District of Texas from 1992 to 1999. On January 23, 2018, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Albright to an undetermined seat on the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. On January 24, 2018, his nomination was sent to the United States Senate. He was nominated to the seat vacated by Judge Walter Scott Smith Jr., who retired on September 14, 2016. On April 25, 2018, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On May 24, 2018, his nomination was reported out of committee by voice  vote. On September 6, 2018, his nomination was confirmed by voice vote. He received his judicial commission on September 10, 2018, and was sworn in by Chief Judge Orlando Luis Garcia on September 18, 2018. Criticisms. After Albright encouraged patent owners to file claims in the Western District of Texas, one fifth of the nation's patent cases were filed in the district. On September 24, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rebuked Albright for refusing to follow the law limiting federal judges from retaining cases that should be transferred to another jurisdiction. On October  21, 2021, the Federal Circuit issued a writ of mandamus transferring another patent case that Judge Albright oversaw because of his prior denial of transfer. The Federal Circuit's opinion rebuked Albright's continuous denial of transfers from the Western District. Due to Albright's actions, on November 2, 2021, Senators Thom Tillis and Patrick Leahy wrote a bipartisan letter asking Chief Justice John G. Roberts to direct the Judicial Conference of the United States to "conduct a study of actual and potential abuses" that result from an "absence of adequate rules regulating judicial assignment and venue for patent cases  within a [single judicial] district.". The letter criticized Albright for having "openly solicited cases at lawyers' meetings" and for having "repeatedly ignored binding case law and abused his discretion," noting that Albright's decisions "resulted in a flood of mandamus petitions" being filed and granted "no fewer than 15 times in just the past two years.".