Despite this Austin did join an inter-racial club on campus, as well as the young chapter of Delta Sigma Theta though none of the black sororities or fraternities had their picture in school yearbooks until later. Austin received a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1930 from the University of Cincinnati, becoming the first black woman to graduate from the UC Law School, though her father did not live to see it, nor when she passed the Indiana Bar, as one of 22 black women lawyers by 1930 and one of the pioneers marked by Goler Teal Butcher. During the work of that degree Austin had taken a year to be on the staff of the "Rocky Mountain Law Review" and on return earned a place in the Cincinnati Law Review. She closed out her university work in April presenting Liberia in a mock League of Nations event on campus, a preview of some of her international efforts in later years. Austin's grandfather did live to see these achievements and died in October of that year. Austin was living back home with family, where Austin's mother was inspired to go back to college as well. In 1931 Austin had opened a law practice in Indianapolis, Indiana, and then in Ohio in 1933 where she co-founded a law firm with Henry J. Richardson Jr. and then presented about the work of the NAACP. About the same time Austin becomes visible as a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. But she was unquieted.