Tom Buckle |

Law Office of William Thomas Buckle

Tom Buckle | Law Office of William Thomas Buckle

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Firm Summary

Tom Buckle was born and reared in Houston, Texas. He graduated from Lamar High School in 1963. Mr. Buckle was an undergraduate at Rice University in Houston and received his B.A. in 1967. In 1970, he obtained his J.D. from the University of Texas. Since 1970, Mr. Buckle has continuously practiced law in Austin.

From 1969 to 1972, Mr. Buckle worked with the Travis County Legal Aid program. From 1972 until early 1975, he was employed by the Texas Air Control Board as a staff attorney in the state agency responsible for controlling air pollution.

In 1975, John Hill, who was then Attorney General of Texas, asked Mr. Buckle to join the environmental division of the Texas Attorney General’s office to represent the state’s environmental agencies and to advise him on air pollution matters, particularly Houston’s air pollution problems.

In June of 1978, the law firm of Scanlan & Buckle was founded. From 1978 through 1988, Mr. Buckle handled primarily environmental cases. He also was extremely active in the State Bar’s Environmental Law Section, initially as the editor of the section’s newsletter and then holding every office in the section and lecturing at a number of continuing legal education seminars on various environmental matters.

In 1986, Mr. Buckle was asked by the Travis County Bar Association to serve on its Grievance Committee. He was re-appointed twice and served as Chair of the twenty-five person committee the last eighteen months of his appointment, implementing in Travis County the State Bar’s new regulatory system for handling lawyer misconduct cases

In 1999, Mr. Buckle was appointed to the Planning and Zoning Commission in Jonestown, Texas, the city in which he resides and in May 2000, he was appointed Chair of the Commission. In 2005, he was appointed to an unexpired term on the Jonestown City Council. He was elected to the City Council in 2007. He served until 2013 as Mayor Pro Temp. In 2015, he returned to the City Council and continues to serve as Mayor Pro Temp.

Since 2010, Mr. Buckle has been elected by the real property taxing districts in the western half of Travis County, Texas, to serve as its director on the Board of Directors of the Travis County Appraisal District. From 2006-2012, he volunteered his time as a director of Family Eldercare (a non-profit providing assistance to the elderly and mentally handicapped in Travis County) and from 2005 to present as a board member of Twilight Concerts (a non-profit providing musical concerts to the residents on the north side of Lake Travis).

Since 1988, Mr. Buckle’s practice has focused in the areas of municipal law, commercial and residential real estate, including all aspects of land use development and regulatory controls; wills, trusts and estate planning; probate; and, creation and representation of various business entities.