Overview
- Albright said he will step down in August to return to trial practice, telling Bloomberg Law he misses being a courtroom lawyer and feels the timing is right at age 66.
- He leaves one of the heaviest dockets in the region, including 70% of the district’s civil cases pending three years or more and 446 undecided motions as of September 2025.
- Colleagues warned the workload will move to other judges with little reduction before August, which could slow rulings for parties waiting on long‑pending motions and trials.
- His departure creates a vacancy in the Austin division, following Senate confirmations earlier in April of Andrew Davis to Austin and Chris Wolfe to the Waco seat Albright once held.
- Albright turned Waco into a patent hotspot that drew up to a quarter of U.S. patent suits until the court ordered random assignment of new Waco patent cases to limit forum shopping, and he also issued a notable 2023 ruling striking down a Texas book‑ban law.