Photo from St. Mary’s University School of Law

ALOYSIUS A. LEOPOLD was born March 14, 1934 in Nada, Texas into a family of cotton farmers. Professor Leopold began his career working in various blue collar occupations, including laboring with a construction crew, managing a lumberyard, and serving in the army. He then studied at Assumption Seminary in San Antonio for three years before enrolling at St. Mary’s University School of Law where he earned his law degree in 1962.

Leopold went into private practice as an associate with the firm of Kelley, Looney, McLean & Littleton, then as a partner in the Edinburg firm of Peña & Leopold specializing in property law. Five years later, he joined St. Mary’s School of Law faculty and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in History from St. Mary’s in 1970.

Professor Leopold was the first recipient of St. Mary’s University’s School of Law Distinguished Faculty Award in 1984 and over the years, numerous student organizations named him Professor of the Year. Professor Leopold authored over twenty-five state and nationally published treatises as well as numerous books, academic discussions, legal analyses, and law reviews. Professor Leopold also made contributions toward legal discourse on topics such as real estate, community property, homesteads, mortgages, land titles, wills, probate, ante-mortem probate and loss of earning capacity in community property jurisdictions. Professor Leopold prepared numerous casebooks designed for use in law school classes on mortgages and real estate finance, marital property and homesteads, and the international law of stolen art and artifacts. Additionally Professor Leopold contributed to founding the St. Mary’s Law Journal and served for many years as its faculty advisor.

At the age of eighty, Professor Leopold retired from St. Mary’s in 2015. In his time at St. Mary’s, he worked under six law school Deans.

By John Cadena, St. Mary’s University Law Fellows in Public History (2018).

References:

● Sherry Barnash & James Rodriguez, I Know I’ll Miss Teaching, Sᴀɴ Aɴᴛᴏɴɪᴏ L., July-August 2015, at 5, https://sanantoniobar.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SA-Lawyer-Jul-Aug-Online.pdf.

● St. Mary’s University School of Law, Aloysius A. Leopold Professor Emeritus of Law (2019), https://law.stmarytx.edu/academics/faculty/aloysius-leopold/.

● Gerry W. Beyer, Tribute Professor Aloysius A. Leopold: An Extraordinary Man, 47 Sᴛ. Mᴀʀʏ’ꜱ L. J. xi, xi-xvi (2015-2016).