Historic Palestine

elocated his offices to part of the old Coca Cola
Bottling Plant at 1222 North Link Street in
Palestine where he remains today.
In 2001 former District Attorney Jeff
Herrington became a partner in the firm and
it was renamed Swift & Herrington. Although
their partnership was dissolved in 2007, they
still continue to work together on complicated
civil litigation.
Today, Dick specializes in civil litigation
with special emphasis on personal injury trial
law. For the past thirty-one years, he has
been involved in hundreds of jury trials,
appeared before many Texas Appellate Courts,
Federal Appellate Courts, and the Texas
Supreme Court.
Dick has been active in civic and community
service and professional associations and
held many prestigious positions in the community.
He is a member of the Anderson County
Bar Association, State Bar of Texas, Texas Trial
Lawyers Association (serving as Director in
1987); Southern Trial Lawyers Association;
American Association for Justice; and the
Million Dollar Advocates Forum.
Swift’s family tradition of community leadership
and involvement began early, He was
elected County Attorney and later elected to
represent District 11 in the Texas State House
of Representatives from 1988-1991. He and
wife, Susan, were both National Delegates to
the Democratic Convention in 1996, where
they served as McNeil-Lehrer Hour Internet
reporters. They have both been elected Chair of
the County Democratic Party.
A former deacon at First Christian Church,
Dick and his father, Ernest, taught the
“Judge E. V. Swift Men’s Bible Study” class. This
class was founded by and presided over by
Judge Swift.
During his tenure as a board member for the
Memorial Hospital Foundation, a new state-ofthe-art
hospital was built in 1996.
Dick was the founding president of the
Trinity Basin Conservation Foundation (TBCF),
whose mission is to improve the quality of life,
economic sustainability and ecological integrity
of the Trinity River Basin.
An avid outdoorsman, Dick serves as a duck
guide at The Big Woods on the Trinity, and
enjoys working with his Labrador retrievers.
Excellence, honesty, value, hard work and
personal service were the cornerstones of the
Swift legacy that began in 1914, and they
continue to be the principles that guide the
Law Offices of Dick Swift today.
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Above: Swift at work in his library.
Below: Dick with one of his
Labrador retrievers.
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