Played by John Michael Higgins

Jerry Austin was a Crane, Poole & Schmidt partner who appeared in episode 1x01 [Head Cases]. Austin and Mark Halpern attended the chaotic opening staff meeting when Edwin Poole entered and disrupted the proceedings. The two of them appeared to be cast as "normal" attorneys to balance out some of the zanier characters at the firm. Austin's looks and demeanor are somewhat reminiscent of Matthew Billings, who was a key figure at Crane, Poole & Schmidt in the final episodes of The Practice but whose character did not carry over to Boston Legal.

Jerry had a much larger speaking role in the early drafts of "Head Cases", scenes that were probably even filmed with John Michael Higgins. However, upon seeing the pilot episode before air, David E. Kelley decided to rewrite the script to back off some of the comedy, according to Bill D'Elia's comments in March 2005 at the William Paley Television Festival panel discussion. These changes may have led to hiring and incorporating of Rene Auberjonois as Paul Lewiston, for it was Paul who inherited most of the lines originally assigned to Jerry. (Portion of the early version of the script, although these eight pages don't cover the Jerry to Paul dialogue transfer). Some of Jerry's deleted dialogue can be seen in the "deleted scenes" feature on the Season 1 DVD (Transcript of deleted scenes from 1x01 [Head Cases]).

Jerry Austin also had a non-speaking appearance in episode 1x02 [Still Crazy After All These Years], in which he was seen observing's Denny performance in court.

John Michael Higgins at the Internet Movie Database.