Portfolio Media . Inc . | 111 West 19 th Street , 5th Floor | New York , NY 10011 | www . law360 . com Phone : + 1 646 783 7100 | Fax : + 1 646 783 7161 | customerservice @ law360 . com
Incoming Texas Bar President-Elect Talks Connecting Attys
By Lynn LaRowe
Law360 ( May 11 , 2023 , 3:53 PM EDT ) -- From the bustling metro areas to the far-flung corners of the Lone Star State , Bracewell LLP business litigator W . Stephen " Steve " Benesh wants to ensure that lawyers feel connected to the State Bar of Texas once he becomes president-elect of the organization .
Austin-based Benesh , whose 36-year legal career has been spent at Bracewell , recently won a tight election to become president-elect during a monthlong voting period that ended May 2 . He secured about 52 % of the roughly 23,000 ballots cast in defeating his opponent , Jerry Alexander of Passman & Jones in Dallas .
" I want to communicate to lawyers that wherever they are in the state , they have as much of a seat at the table as anyone else does ," Benesh said .
W . Stephen " Steve " Benesh
Benesh — who will succeed upcoming bar president Cindy Tisdale of Goranson Bain Ausley PLLC — will be sworn in as president-elect on June 22 and will serve as the organization ' s president from June 2024 to June 2025 . For a year after that , as the immediate past president , he will continue to serve as an officer on the board of directors .
Benesh has a long history of service to his fellow attorneys , including as a volunteer director on the state bar ' s board from 2008 to 2011 and chair of the board ' s annual meeting in 2014 . He has served as a trustee of the Texas Bar Foundation since 2017 and is its current chair-elect . Benesh served as president of the Austin Bar Association from 2006 to 2007 and has been a member for more than 20 years .
Among his priorities while in state bar leadership are improving the attorney grievance process , standardizing electronic filing across counties and making the organization more functional for Texas lawyers , Benesh said .
Benesh recently talked to Law360 Pulse about his goals for his time in office and his thoughts about the challenges currently facing the state bar . The responses have been edited for length and clarity .
Your election and other recent Texas Bar president elections have been close races . Does that factor into how you will approach the position ?
A little over 23,000 lawyers voted in the state bar race and we have over 111,000 licensed lawyers in