Casceil Medlin Aronson passed away on May 31, 2024, surrounded by her loving family, at Honor Health Scottsdale Osborn Medical Center. The cause of death was complications following a hip replacement surgery. Casceil was born in Dallas, Texas on August 12, 1953, to Frederick Lemuel and Doris Boyd Medlin. Her father died when she was nine, leaving Casceil, her mother and brother living on Social Security and Veteran’s Survivor Benefits. Her mother did not even know how to drive when she suddenly became a widow. In high school, Casceil sewed most of her own clothes, at which she was accomplished. She was also an exceptional student. She attended a large public high school, Bryan Adams, as part of a class of over 1,000. She was the salutatorian of her large class, narrowly missing valedictorian due to one lone B in a typing class that marred her perfect record. Her mother had insisted she take typing. Many who knew Casceil in high school and the decades that would follow remarked upon her gentle, generous, and kind nature. Her brilliance was apparent to many. A close friend from high school, Katie Cook, recalled Casceil as she was in those years. They competed together in high school speech tournaments, performing duet acting pieces, and Casceil did dramatic interpretations of prose and poetry. Katie also recalled that in the summer of 1970, Casceil was in Harlequin Players, a student summer stock theater in Dallas. Harlequin Players did one play per week, and Casceil was in some of these, and she also worked backstage on such things as sets and costumes. Katie thought Casceil “enjoyed that immensely.” Katie continued, “I vividly remember the night she called to say she was accepted at Princeton. This was like a fairy tale dream come true! I started screaming at my parents ‘Casceil got into Princeton!’ We talked for a long time . . . and every few minutes one of us would say ‘Wow, Princeton!’ And the other would say ‘Wow!’ Casceil’s mother did not want her to go to Princeton , but rather to stay in town and go to SMU. Katie remembers“but Casceil was determined to not let this opportunity go.” Her brother Lin, who insisted Casceil should definitely go to Princeton, recalls that Casceil’s high school guidance counselor even told her not to go to Princeton, because she wouldn’t “be happy there.” Casceil was part of the second class of undergraduate women at Princeton. She supplemented her scholarships with college jobs, and worked very hard. Among other things, she was among the first women on the Princeton fencing team. She majored in English and her senior thesis was on the Arthurian Legend and its use of the legends of Merlin. She wanted, however, to study archeology in graduate school. She got into excellent archeology programs, but none gave her quite sufficient financial aid to attend, and the archeology departments warned her of a scarcity of jobs in the field. As a backup, Casceil had applied to a single law school, the University of Texas in Austin, where in those days in-state tuition was less than $200 a year, and with jobs supplementing her scholarships, she could work her way through. At UT Law School, she made the Law Review, while also working part time for lawyers in Austin. She received her JD in 1978. Jack Brown, a lawyer from Phoenix, interviewed Casceil and she liked him and the firm. She went to work in Phoenix for Brown and Bain,. She would stay with that firm for more than 12 years, becoming a partner. During those years, her practice included a broad range of civil matters, but she specialized in complex litigation, particularly computer-related antitrust, trade secret and contract litigation. Brown and Bain was involved in extremely complex anti-trust litigation in California, and Casceil did a lot of work on cases there. One California case that particularly affected Casceil was In re Data General Corp Antitrust Litigation. For that case, Brown and Bain moved her into an apartment in Nob Hill in San Francisco, but the toil was so relentless that pretty much all she could do was work and sleep. The firm had rented offices in San Francisco for the trial team. In the lobby a memorable sign said “Welcome to Litigation Headquarters. Let’s pick up the pace.” Years of labor preceded a brutally demanding 45-day jury trial. Her clients were seeking $100 million in damages, which under the antitrust laws would have been trebled to $300 million. Thrillingly for Casceil, the jury awarded the plaintiffs a verdict on liability. But then the federal judge granted judgement for the defendants notwithstanding the verdict, and granted a new trial. The case then settled. Casceil felt she and many of her colleagues had been deeply affected by the intensity of that trial. The best thing to come out of Casceil’s legal adventures in California started at a science fiction convention in San Jose. There she met the love of her life, Peter Aronson, a software designer for ESRI. They were married in 1989. Their first child, Jay (Kylo) Aronson, was born in 1991, and their second, Alexander Linton Aronson, in 1993. After Brown & Bain, Casceil worked for the Arizona Supreme Court as a staff attorney for thirty years, from 1991 until her retirement in March of 2021. The Staff Attorney’s Office reports her areas of expertise there as including “domestic relations, estate and trust cases, real property, commercial litigation, insurance disputes and attorneys’ fees issues.” Casceil also served as the Training Coordinator for the Staff Attorneys’ Office and Judicial Suites. Casceil is remembered at that office as an avid reader, and “as a gentle and self-effacing colleague and brilliant analyst with an unerring instinct for the correct and just outcome to the most complex legal issue.” Casceil is survived by her husband Peter, and her adult children, Jay (Kylo) Aronson and his spouse Cory Taylor, Alexander Linton Aronson and his wife Autumn Aronson, Casceil’s brother Frederick Linton (“Lin”) Medlin and his wife Joann Kleinhenz Medlin, her aunt Marguerite Medlin, her brother-in-law Mark Aronson and his wife Laura Aronson, her brother-in-law Stephen Aronson and his wife Robin Aronson and her cats Ajax and Janiel. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in her name to Arizona Association of Food Banks. There will be a celebration of Casceil's life on or near what would have been her 71st birthday.