Judge Emily Miskel: Professional Background and Legal Expertise

The Hon. Emily Miskel is a justice for Place 13 of the 5th District Court of Appeals of Texas. She was appointed to the bench by Governor Greg Abbott on December 20, 2022, filling a vacancy created by the resignation of the Hon. Leslie Lester Osborne.

Prior to her appointment, Miskel was a judge for the 470th District Court in Collin County, a position to which she was named in 2015. She held the nation's first fully remote hearing and its first fully virtual bench trial during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Miskel earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 2002. She spent the next three years working as a project engineer for EDM Services, handling the design, construction, and permitting for oil and gas pipelines and refineries in California. Then, in 2008, she completed a J.D. at Harvard Law School.

She is Board Certified in Family Law (2013) and Child Welfare Law (2020) by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

After graduating from law school, Miskel entered into private practice. She started as an attorney at Thompson & Knight, specializing in patent, environmental, and international energy matters. She worked in that capacity until 2009, at which time she moved to KoonsFuller, where she handled family law matters until her election to the bench.

Her memberships have included the Texas Association of Family Law Specialists, the Collin County Bar Association, the Collaborative Law Institute of Texas, and the Henderson American Inn of Court. She has also been involved with the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society, the Collin County Women Lawyers Association, and the Collin County Young Lawyers Association, and she has served on the Civil Justice Committee of the Texas Judicial Council, the Finance Committee of the Texas Center for the Judiciary, and the Gala Committee for the Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County.

She is a recipient of the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence from the National Center for State Courts (2020).

She is registered as a Republican.