Justice Raymond D. Austin, Distinguished Jurist in Residence, is Navajo (Diné) from northeastern Arizona. Justice Austin is a Vietnam era veteran of the United States Army. He received a BS from Arizona State University in 1979 and earned a law degree from the University of New Mexico Law School in 1983. In 2007, he received a PhD in American Indian Studies, Law and Policy Concentration, from the University of Arizona.

After completing law school, Justice Austin served as staff attorney with the Navajo-Hopi Legal Services Program in Tuba City, Arizona. He served on the Navajo Nation Supreme Court from 1985 to 2001 and served as judge pro tempore on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division I, during fall 1993 and spring 1994. Austin served as the Herman Phleger Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the Stanford Law School in the spring of 1995. He has also lectured and taught short courses at the Harvard Law School, Arizona State University College of Law, University of Utah College of Law, and other law schools. He has lectured on Indian law and tribal law and judicial systems to members of the state bars of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and to other legal associations. Austin is a member of the Navajo Nation Bar Association and the state bars of Arizona and Utah. He is also a past member of the board of directors for the National Indian Justice Center, National American Indian Court Judges' Association, and the Advisory Council on Indian Legal Programs at the Arizona State University College of Law. He co-teaches and supervises students in the IPLP clinic with Professor Robert Hershey during the fall semester and teaches Tribal Courts & Tribal Law during the spring semester.