“The cartoons take on an independent
significance in the class as students begin identifying
specific cartoons with points of view and with rules of
law, so it gives us a common language to use when talking
about cases.”
It’s 10 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. Professor John
Mixon (J.D. ’55) arrives at his classroom half an
hour early to prepare.
Dressed in a suit and tie, Mixon’s bright eyes and
dexterous hands defy his seventy-plus years. He approaches
the blackboard, chalk dusting his fingers, and begins to
transform  the space. One figure becomes a stick person;
another an alien from another planet. Still another resembles
a dead cow. He stops occasionally to reference his book,
then returns to his blackboard to scribble more illustrations
and notes. By the time the first students start trickling
in, he has transformed the blackboard into a crowded group
of cartoon characters punctuated by tough remarks.
This is not an art class. It’s a law class. Contracts.
And these cartoon figures are going to help his students
make sense of it all.
“When I was in law school (at UH), I briefed my
cases by making cartoons in the margins of the book,” Mixon
says. “This was the way I’ve always remembered
cases in law. I thought it would help my students as well.” According
to Mixon, some fifty-plus years ago, UH’s law school
had the highest admission requirements in the state (90
hours with a C+ average). Many of its early graduates turned
out to be leaders in the bar. Times may have changed, but
UH Law Center graduates still lead the pack.
Mixon has called the UH Law Center home for more than
fifty years, with the last twenty including his cast of “cartoon
characters.” The drawings were an instant hit and
became a requested prop in a class that does not allow
laptops or include such modern conveniences as PowerPoint.
“It
gives us a common language to use when talking about cases,” Mixon
adds.
One day a week, students receive cartoon illustrations
of law concepts put forth by Henry Maine, Lon Fuller, Williston
Holmes, and Adam Smith—a chalk flowchart explaining
ideas from Formalism to Critical Legal Studies.
Mixon’s cartoon illustrations include recurring
characters like Big Tex, a land developer; the Martian—to
whom many students must explain complex cases to illustrate
how well they understand the concepts; the Smoking Real
Estate Broker; and the infamous illustration of the Dead
Cow Case—explaining the case of two people who enter
into a contract on May 1 for one to deliver a cow to the
other by June 1. The cow dies, but, as Mixon’s cartoon
illustrates, the carcass is still delivered by the agreed
date of June 1.
 In addition to the blackboard in room 240A of the Law
Center, Mixon’s illustrations have graced the shirts
of a UH intramural baseball team, the Tortoises, as well
as the pages of the book, Law School
Survival Guide, written
by former Mixon student—Tamsen Valoir (J.D. ’95,
LL .M. ’99).
Mixon is modest about his teaching legacy—more than
12,000 students by his estimation—that includes attorneys
John O’Quinn (’65, ’67, J.D. ’69),
Marvin Nathan (’66, J.D. ’69), Jack Rains (J.D. ’67),
and Raul Gonzalez (J.D. ’66).
“I just do what
I do,” he says. “If I intended to have that
kind of impact, I wouldn’t.” |
