20th-century American judges

Raymond Clyne McNichols (June 16, 1914 – December 25, 1985) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho.

John Richard Rarick (January 29, 1924 – September 14, 2009) was an American lawyer, jurist, and World War II veteran who served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving Louisiana's 6th congressional district from 1967 to 1975.

Sam Houston Clinton, Jr. (September 17, 1923 – October 5, 2004) was a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge, who as a lawyer represented both atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair and Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

Jerry Lynn Buchmeyer (September 5, 1933 – September 21, 2009) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas, Texas.

Brian Barnett Duff (September 15, 1930 – February 25, 2016) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Robert Madden Hill (January 13, 1928 – October 19, 1987) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Seaborn Jesse Buckalew Jr. (December 6, 1920 – May 11, 2017) was an American lawyer, politician, and judge.

Ruby Kless Sondock (born April 26, 1926) is a former Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. She was the first woman to serve on the Texas Supreme Court.
Sondock initially attended the University of Houston Law Center in order to become a legal secretary, but she was admitted to the state bar a year before her graduation as valedictorian of her class (1962). Sondock was appointed to the Harris County Domestic Relations Court No. 5 in 1973 and to the 234th District Court in 1977. Sondock was the first woman to be appointed as a State District Judge in Harris County, Texas.
Sondock was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court following the death of Associate Justice James G. Denton on June 10, 1982. Sondock served from June 25 to December 31 of that year, completing Denton's term. Sondock declined to seek election to the Supreme Court and instead ran successfully for reelection to her District Court seat the following year. Sondock was the court's first female justice, with the exception of a special all-woman court convened in 1925 to hear a single case. Sondock formed part of the majority of the Texas Supreme Court in the landmark case of Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S. A. v. Hall.
A distinguished legal mind, Sondock has received a number of accolades, including an annual lecture series on legal ethics. Former speakers at the Sondock Lecture on Legal Ethics at the University of Houston Law Center include U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch and Helen Thomas. On November 11, 2015, the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas inducted Sondock as a "Texas Legal Legend."

William Lockhart Garwood (October 29, 1931 – July 14, 2011) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Edward Cornelius Reed Jr. (July 8, 1924 – June 1, 2013) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.