Mike Engelhart has been the Judge of the 151st Civil District Court since January 1, 2009 after being elected in Harris County in November 2008. He was re-elected in 2012 and 2016 and 2020. A 1995 graduate of The University of Houston Law Center, he was an Associate Editor of the Houston Law Review. He earned a BA in Political Science and Spanish from the University of Michigan in 1992. He is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial law, and speaks Spanish fluently.
He is running for re-election in 2024 and is endorsed in the 2024 Democratic Primary by Mayor Sylvester Turner among many others.
Judge Engelhart is on the Board of Directors of the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists (TACTAS), and is on the Board of Directors of Greater Houston Kosher Chili Cookoff, Inc. (a 501(c)(3) organization). He is 15 year Fellow of the College of the State Bar of Texas and a member of the Society of Legal Scholars. He is a frequent CLE speaker, and a certified mediator. He currently mediates problem cases for other civil district judges for free.
In 2016 he won the University of Houston Law Center Alumni Association “Public Sector Achievement Award,” and the “Trial Judge of the Year” from TACTAS. In 2017, Judge Engelhart was awarded the Franklin Jones Best CLE Article prize by the College of the State Bar of Texas. In 2019, he received the President’s Award from the Houston Bar Association (HBA) for his service to the HBA. He has served 2 terms as Civil Administrative Judge of the 24 Civil District Courts of Harris County as well. The Houston Chronicle, in endorsing Judge Engelhart, called him “among the top judges in the county, if not the state.”
Judge Engelhart is admitted to practice law in the Federal Northern, Eastern, Western, and Southern Districts of Texas as well as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
He lives in Houston with his wife of 27 years, Eva, who is an attorney and a Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee. They have two boys, Joey, 24, a UT graduate, and Zachary, 21, who is getting his master’s degree at Texas A&M University in College Station.