Charles E Cantu

CHARLES E. CANTÚ was born in Harlingen, Texas on August 3, 1939. He moved to San Antonio, Texas at a young age and graduated from Northside High School (John Marshall High School) in 1957.

He received a B.B.A. from the University of Texas in 1961. Encouraged by his father, Cantú pursued a law degree, completing his J.D. at St. Mary’s University School of Law in 1964. He became the Editor-in Chief of The Barrister News in 1962-1963 and 1963-1964. He specializes in common law, contracts, products liability, statutory damages, and torts. He later received a Master’s degree in Corporate Law at Southern Methodist University in 1965 and a Master of Law from the University of Michigan in 1978. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Universidad de José Gabriel Moreno in Santa Cruz, Bolivia from 1965-1966

Cantú joined the faculty of St. Mary’s University School of Law in 1966. He became the first Hispanic tenured professor and the youngest law professor, at the age 25, in the United States for both. Cantú became Interim Dean of the Law School in 2007 and Dean the next year and directed his energies toward fundraising, emphasizing the school’s Catholic identity, deepening collaborative interchanges with the main campus, and establishing a study abroad program in China. He concluded his deanship in 2014 and retired from St. Mary’s at the end of 2018.

Cantú is an engaged member of San Antonio and serves on numerous committees and civic organizations. He served on numerous committees of the American Bar Association, chaired the Board of Trustees of San Antonio’s Witte Museum, and served with San Antonio Hospice, Fiesta Commission, Mays Family Cancer Center, Villa Finale, and Winston High School. He currently works at the law firm of Davis, Cedillo and Mendoza as a Mediator on an of counsel basis.

Shine Trabucco, St. Mary’s University Law Fellows in Public History (2018)

References: