Robert Lynn Batts (1864-1935) was born on November 1, 1864 in Bastrop, Texas. In 1886, he received an LL.B. from University of Texas and went into private practice from 1886-1891. From 1891-1893, he was an assistant state attorney general of Texas and then a law professor at the University of Texas in Austin from 1893 to 1900. After returning to private practice from 1900-1917, Batts was nominated by President Woodrow Wilson to be a federal judge to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 17, 1917. Batts resigned this position in 1919 and that year became general counsel to Gulf Oil. Robert Lynn Batts died on May 19, 1935.
Papers concerned with the career of Batts (1864-1935), attorney, judge, educator, relate to land transactions; early history of Bastrop; Batts's activities as an attorney in Bastrop and Austin; his association with The University of Texas as a law student, a professor of law, and a member of the Board of Regents; and his professional activities as Texas counsel in the Waters-Pierce case, as United States judge of Circuit Court of Appeals, and as general counsel for the Gulf Petroleum Company. Materials dealing with The University of Texas concern the constitutional amendment fight of 1913-1914 over state tax to support both The University of Texas and Texas A & M College, the Ferguson Controversy, and recommendations for the selection of presidents. Papers include correspondence, reminiscences, college papers, minutes, deeds, plats, surveys, account papers, bonds, and legal papers.
Robert Lynn Batts Papers, 1820-1935, 1949, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.