The Winning Ticket
The Albright family hit the lottery—in their own way.
“Education is the best gift you can give somebody, and I hit the lottery in the sense that I never had to worry about where my tuition would come from,” Wilson Albright ’17 says. Along with his mom, Alexandra Wilson Albright ’80, the two are shaping the family’s philanthropy around that win.
A three-generation Texas Law family, Alex and Wilson established the James Wilson Family Scholarship Endowment in honor of James W. Wilson ’51, Alex’s father and Wilson’s grandfather, who died in 2019. Jim sold ladies’ shoes to put himself through law school, but he ended up serving as general counsel to Brown & Root, an international construction company in Houston, after practicing law in Austin for many years. He and Alex’s mother, Betty Wilson, cared deeply about education and enabled their family to pursue theirs without significant debt.
Wilson says education is a gift that lasts over time, opens doors, and makes you a better person. With their scholarship, the Albright family wants others to experience the opportunities education affords.
“My dad would be so proud—we encouraged each other to pursue a legal education and now, through the scholarship, we’re encouraging others,” Alex says, “Wilson and I are doing this together, in dad’s name, in appreciation of all he did for us, and in appreciation of the Law School, which gave Jim opportunities that he couldn’t have imagined.” So, they want to help others by giving back.
Texas Law holds a special place in the Wilson-Albright family story. Alex spent 29 years as a professor of federal and Texas civil procedure. Jim taught constitutional law for one semester in the 1960s. After retiring from Brown & Root, he returned to the law school to teach construction law as an adjunct for many years.
For Wilson, the connection to Texas Law started young—trick-or-treating through the halls, visiting Alex’s office, and working in the Law School mail room during high school. Given that past, he says he was destined to attend Texas Law. Wilson is now in-house at WM Capital Partners in Austin after working for several years at Jackson Walker.
“We’ve been successful—all of us—thanks to our Texas Law degrees,” says Alex, now a partner at Alexander, Dubose, & Jefferson LLP in Austin. Alex’s stepdaughter, Alissa Parsley ’12, is also a Texas Law graduate and real estate attorney at Clint Parsley & Associates in Austin.
Wilson, meanwhile, recalls his undergraduate time in the Texas Cowboys, an honorary student service organization at the University of Texas, and their guiding slogan: “Give the best you have to Texas, and the best will come back to you.” And not just financially, but also “with your time, efforts, and energy,” he says.