Lone Star Lawyer: Tira Jones Holcomb Wears Many Hats

Written by Doug Goodnough

Tira Jones Holcomb, ’95, wears many hats. Lawyer, wife, mother, elected official, part-time rancher, and budding golfer.

Being from Texas, those hats happen to be Stetsons.

At age 12, the Lubbock native knew a legal career was what she wanted, and attending Hillsdale College was part of that plan.

“Even during my interview at Hillsdale, I made it clear to the admissions committee that that was my trajectory,” Holcomb said. “I stayed true to that trajectory.”

After graduating from Hillsdale, she started law school at the University of Texas, but decided to transfer to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where she finished and eventually met her husband, Corby.

“We were study partners and friends first,” she said. “I married my law school sweetheart.”

Texas Tech also had one of the top legal programs when it came to energy, specifically oil and gas.

“Energy and natural resources had always interested me, and so it ended up being part of my professional direction,” Holcomb said.

She started her legal career as a litigator, and one of her most interesting early cases was against nationally known attorney Johnny Cochran of the O.J. Simpson trial fame.

“I ended up writing the brief against Johnny Cochran,” she said. “I bested him at least on a brief. For a first-year attorney, that was a little feather in my cap.”

The couple eventually moved to Austin to start a family. After their first child was born, she decided to become a full-time mom and a part-time attorney.

“When I was pregnant with child number three, late in my pregnancy, I did my last trial and knew that I was going to have to take a break from litigation,” said Holcomb, now a mother of four boys. “As luck and fate would have it, a focus on oil, gas, and energy law has allowed me to build a practice from home.”

She has owned and operated Tira Jones Holcomb Law for 25 years.

“Just when I think I’m at the end of that being a focus area in my practice, it always seems to come back,” she said. “And that’s the nature of energy markets and other energy things I represent, like farmers and ranchers, because that is what I come from. It was a natural fit for me, and that’s what I like the best. I really prefer the individual ranchers and farmers who I work with for both water resources, oil and gas, and everything land-oriented that needs to be done.”

She currently serves as president of her local municipal utility district, which has her managing the district’s operations.

“In certain areas of Texas, a lot of the suburban areas are not served by city services, like water or wastewater and such,” she said of her role, which is an elected position. “They [utility districts] really started becoming more common about 30 years ago in the Houston area. Now Dallas, the Austin area, and San Antonio have these municipal utility districts that can be large or small. Some are the size of a small city. I manage the consultants. I make sure if we have anything that happens—things break or we have to redo infrastructure—I’m the point person for all of that. I make the executive decisions for the district.”

She said Hillsdale College reminded her of her Texas roots, and her participation in the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program (WHIP) during her time as a student was memorable. Holcomb said her family received the College publication Imprimis , which she was reading as early as age 14 and sparked her interest in Hillsdale.

“It completely resonated with me, and that resonance carried forward when I was making my own college decisions,” she said. “As soon as I visited the College, I would say within an hour, I was absolutely certain that is where I wanted to go.”

Her decision became even easier after receiving a full-tuition academic scholarship. She stays connected to the College and said some of her most impactful classes at Hillsdale had nothing to do with law.

“One was Renaissance art, and the second, the one I took purely as an elective as a senior, was physics,” said Holcomb, who was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. “Those two courses absolutely have impacted my life in ways I could have never imagined as a Hillsdale College student. This is why I always believed liberal arts education was important. But those solidified it for me.”

She stays connected with classmate Nate Stewart, ’95, who shares a love of art. Stewart recently helped start an art essay contest at the College, which she supports.

“He sent me the winning essay, and it was remarkably brilliant,” Holcomb said.

Holcomb spent part of her childhood on the family cattle ranch in eastern New Mexico, which she and her husband now own and operate from a distance.

“I am leasing it right now, but I have had to work it before,” she said. “And yes, I can ride a horse, and I was on the equestrian team at Hillsdale College.”

However, Texas is where her heart is. She said her family has been in Texas since before Texas was a state, and up until recently, owned property that was from an original Stephen F. Austin land grant.

“When you ask where someone’s from, most people will say the West Coast or some other place,” Holcomb said. “Texans will always say Texas. Internationally, they will always say Texas. They don’t say, ‘I’m from the United States.’ They say, ‘I’m from Texas.’ And that is part of what I love about Texans. And Texans, when you run into them abroad, or, in my case, in (Washington) D.C., immediately it is like you are long-lost friends.

“I will say that outside of Texas, Hillsdale was the friendliest place I ever found.”

Her husband recently introduced her to golf, and she has been a quick study. Holcomb said she is prepping for the future.

“I think the next phase is semi-retirement, running the land management that I have,” she said. “I really do enjoy that and playing more golf.”

Doug Goodnough, '90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.

Published in March 2026

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