Arthur Linton Corbin

Arthur Linton Corbin (October 17, 1874 – May 1, 1967) was an American lawyer and legal scholar who was a professor at Yale Law School. He contributed to the development of the philosophy of law known as legal realism and wrote one of the most celebrated legal treatises of the 20th century, Corbin on Contracts.

Early life and education Corbin was born in Linn County, Kansas, on October 17, 1874. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1894 and briefly taught high school in Augusta, Kansas, and Lawrence, Kansas. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1899, graduating magna cum laude. Following graduation from Yale, he practiced law in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Corbin returned to Yale Law School in 1903 to serve as an instructor in contract law.

Career at Yale Corbin became a full professor at Yale Law School in 1909, a position he would hold until his retirement from teaching in 1943. Williston served as the reporter for the First Restatement of Contracts, but Corbin's contributions were more evident in the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, which he worked on until his retirement from legal study at age 90, due to failing eyesight. Corbin died at age 92, in 1967.

Corbin's scholarship heavily influenced the drafters of the Uniform Commercial Code, particularly the work of Karl Llewellyn who had previously studied under Corbin.

His portrait is in the Yale Law School collection.

Works by Corbin subsequently revised by Joseph M. Perillo (1993), and then John E. Murray, Jr. & Timothy Murray.