Arthur Moller was born in Galveston, Texas in November 1912. He entered the University of Texas at age 16, and earned his L.L.B. degree in 1937 and his B.A. in 1938. Following graduation, he joined the State Attorney General’s office in Austin and concurrently served as Special Counsel to Governor Coke Stevenson. From 1948 to 1962, he served as Assistant U.S. Attorney, as Chief of the Civil Division, in Houston.
In 1962, Chief U.S. District Judge Ben Connally appointed Judge Moller as U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of Texas, a position he held through June 1975. While on the bench, he was a member of the federal Judicial Center Faculty for Bankruptcy Judges seminars and served as Governor for the Fifth Circuit of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. In 1964, Judge Moller began a 30-year association with Matthew Bender & Company, publishers of Collier on Bankruptcy, and served as contributing author for the 14th and 15th editions of that treatise. He also served as contributing author for the Collier Bankruptcy Practice Guide and as editorial consultant for Collier’s TopForm Bankruptcy Filing program. He taught bankruptcy as an adjunct professor at South Texas College of Law from 1978 to 1987.
In 1975 he joined the firm of Sheinfeld, Maley & Kay as Of Counsel. Over the next 15 years, Judge Moller played an instrumental role in the growth of the firm into one of the preeminent bankruptcy/creditors rights law firms in the country. In 1990, Judge Moller joined Sheinfeld partner, David Foltz, in the formation of David B. Foltz, Jr. & Associates, where he served as Of Counsel. There, he remained active in both his law practice and writing, as well as participating in various seminars and speaking engagements until the time of his death.
Judge Moller was a member emeritus of the National Bankruptcy Conference and a member and member emeritus of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. In 1976 became only the third individual ever to receive the NCBJ’s prestigious Herbert M. Bierce Distinguished Judicial Service Award. In 1991 Judge Moller was inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy.
Shortly before his death, the University of Texas School of Law announced the establishment of the Arthur L. Moller Chair in Bankruptcy Law and Practice, made possible through the generosity of over 200 donors.
The breadth of Judge Moller’s influence was due not only to his intellectual and professional stature, but also due to his capacity as teacher, mentor and guide, and to his untiring works as lecturer, writer and professor. His patient, wise, and kind nature, his profound sense of fairness, and his exemplary personal and professional ethics provided an invaluable foundation and incomparable legacy for hundreds of young lawyers with whom he came into contact, both while on the bench and in his practice before and after his tenure as a judge.