Seventy-seven people have resigned from the Dallas County District Attorney’s office since Amber Givens beat the incumbent in March, and she has not yet taken a single case. Forty-seven of them are attorneys. The office she will run from January has 49 vacancies, up from 33 a year ago.
Givens is set to become the county’s first Black woman district attorney. The office she is inheriting decides who gets charged, who gets offered a plea and who waits in jail for a trial date, in one of the largest counties in Texas. A prosecutor shortage is a problem for every person with a case on the docket, and the ones who cannot hire a private lawyer feel it first.
The numbers, as the Dallas Morning News reported: the 47 departed attorneys amount to more than 15% of the 273 attorney jobs the office budgets. At least 19 of them had served more than a decade. The highest-ranking exit was Barbara Nicholas, who ran the civil division and advised the county’s Commissioners Court. Of the 27 attorneys whose next jobs are known, 14 went into private practice. More resignations are pending.
Why they are leaving is not established. The departing attorneys declined to say. Eric Reed, who ran against Givens as a write-in candidate, said: “When attorneys tell us they would rather leave than work under my opponent, that is a failure of confidence with consequences for public safety.” That is a campaign claim, not a finding. Prosecutor shortages are national, and the Dallas office was already losing people before Givens won: vacancies were up to 33 last October.
There are real questions about Givens, and they ran with her through the campaign. She received a judicial reprimand in 2025 over her conduct on the bench, and some Dallas lawyers have questioned her competence. Voters knew it when they gave her 53.85% of the Democratic primary vote against two-term DA John Creuzot.
Her answer so far: “Dedicated public servants who are committed to justice for the people of Dallas County can rest assured that there is a place on my team for them.”
The handover is not helping. Givens told CBS Texas she has not spoken with Creuzot since their February debate and has had to file Public Information Act requests for organizational charts, budgets and grant information that she says she began asking for in April. Creuzot’s office denies a lack of cooperation, says it met with her recently and proposed monthly meetings. Heath Harris, who is on her transition team, said: “If the newly elected DA is having to do PIAs…then there is no transition.”
Both offices should stop trading statements and start trading files. A first Black woman DA was elected on promises of clear timelines, public policies and real accountability, and she cannot deliver any of it into empty courtrooms. The outgoing office owes the voters who chose her a handover that works. Givens takes office in January, and the first test is whether she has a team named by then.
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