Judge Odell Holmes, Jr. is a native El Pasoan, who attended St. Patrick’s Parochial Elementary School, graduated from Austin High School in 1962, then attended Texas Western College, now UTEP, receiving his Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in 1966. Judge Holmes then attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas receiving his Juris Doctorate Degree in 1968.

After returning to El Paso following law school, Judge Holmes joined the District Attorney’s staff here in El Paso and served as an Assistant District Attorney during 1968 and 1969. He left that office to join the firm of COLLINS, LANGFORD, AND PINE and served with them for approximately three and a half (3 1/2 ) years, when he opened his own private practice in which he has been engaged ever since.

Judge Holmes served as City Prosecutor for the City of El Paso, and then was elected as judge of Municipal Court No. 1 in 1979 and served in that capacity until 1985, at which time he was appointed as judge of El Paso’s Municipal Court of Appeals, and has served since that date until present in that capacity.

Judge Holmes has been a member of the State Bar of Texas and the El Paso Bar Association since receiving his license, and was former president of the El Paso Young Lawyers Association as well as the director for the State Board of the Young Lawyers Association, and past president of the El Paso Trial Lawyers Association, and former president of the Westside YMCA Board of Directors here in El Paso. Judge Holmes is also a Certified Mediator and is associated with the Texas Arbitration of Mediation Services here in El Paso in that capacity.

Personally, Judge Holmes is married to Annette Holmes, and is the father of three (3) children, James Odell, Amanda Lynn, and Courtney Lynette.

Since all of El Paso’s Municipal Judges serve on a part-time basis, Judge Holmes is also in private practice of law with emphasis in the following areas, personal injury, family law, wills and estates, probate, as well as conducting a general law practice in many other areas.