Arthur D. Austin.

• Author: Jensen, Erik M.
• Position: Case Western Reserve University School of Law professor - Testimonial

Arthur D. Austin (or Edgar Hahn, as he is sometimes known (1)) was one of the bright young men Louis Toepfer--legendary dean and later Case Western Reserve University president--brought to this law school in the late 1960s. Youthful though Austin then was, I suspect he already had curmudgeonly qualities. If he didn't, he developed them soon thereafter, and he has kept them well-watered and fertilized. (2) He'll enter retirement as a Certified Curmudgeon.

Arthur Austin is known to generations of CWRU students. He has made Contracts come alive, sort of, at six o'clock in the morning. (3) His classes have stimulated interest in antitrust, (4) unfair competition, (5) and legal education in general. (6) He has won teaching awards without stuffing the ballot box. And for years Commissioner Austin's Phlegm Snopes basketball tournament was the law school's top extracurricular activity. (7)

Professor Austin has been a prolific writer, and, as he would be the first to tell you, he has published in far more top law reviews than anyone else on this faculty. (8) He is an antitrust scholar of the first rank. (9) He knows more about how juries actually work than Henry Fonda and the other angry men, (10) and certainly more than most trial tactics teachers. (11) He has studied legal education, (12) legal publication, (13) and lots of other meaty subjects.

In short, Austin has done a lot of serious work, and he knows that writing can be hard. He also believes that writing should be fun, however, and much of his is. He has written stories, (14) done deconstruction graphics (15) (whatever they are), and entertained (and occasionally outraged) the academic world. (16)

Most academic work is unknown to the larger public, and deservedly so. Austin can do the obscure stuff with the best of them, but he has had a larger audience, too. His work was the subject of a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal (17) and columns in the New York Times (18) and the National Law Journal. (19) If that is not impressive enough, he has been quoted in the Youngstown Vindicator. (20) People actually want to read Austin and hear what he has to say. Unlike many academics, he is tied to reality, to real people. (21) For years, Austin was the writer-in-residence at Hinckley, Ohio's (22) famed Reggie's Chicken House, (23) where beer went to die. (24) You can't get more real than that. And he almost always rode the RTA's Red Line to work, or what we academics call work, (25) to hear what the folks were thinking, to keep his fingers on the pulse of the nation. (26)

Although this piece is not an obituary, a recap of the as-yet-unfinished Austinian life is still in order. (27) Full disclosure: I know only the broad outlines, and I probably have some of the details wrong. (28) For that matter, most of what I know comes from Austin himself, and some, ah-h-h, shall we say, embellishment might be involved. (29)

Arthur Austin had an apparently idyllic boyhood in Waynesboro, Virginia, (30) you know, frequenting pool halls, running from the cops (generally successfully), and playing the easy sports. (31) One of my favorite stories is of young Donnie Austin going with his dad to revival meetings. The reason wasn't religious fervor; (32) it was eddication. (33) Dad "was a small-town lawyer who did a lot of litigation before God-fearing local juries, and to him the best instructors in persuasion, rhetoric, and ability to read an audience were God's litigators." (34) That background has helped Austin evaluate others' work. For example: "I can spot a sermon when I see one, and [Derrick] Bell's 'Final Report' is a classic sermon." (35)

Donnie Austin was a star athlete at Waynesboro High, class of 1950, quarterbacking the football team for two years (Honorable Mention All-District (36)) and captaining the basketball team while leading the squad in scoring (2d Team All-District and All-State). (37) After graduating from Waynesboro, he spent a year at Fishburne Military School, which needed athletes to defeat a hated rival. (38) While there, Austin set a record for demerits that, depending on whom you believe, may still stand. (39) He then briefly played football and basketball at West Virginia's Salem College, a school that no longer exists. (Austin has closed down many an establishment.)

Austin moved on to what he sees as the center of the universe, the University of Virginia, which does still exist. (40) He interrupted his scholarly career a year and a half later, however, when he enlisted in the Army. As a medic in Korea, he was a hero, about that there is no doubt whatsoever, and he was badly injured at Pork Chop Hill. (41) He recovered and returned to Mr. Jefferson's University, where he honed his great love for the North Carolina Tarheels and Virginia Tech. (Yes, as anyone who has been in an Austin class knows, I'm being sarcastic. (42) Whatever he thinks of...