Herald P. Fahringer ’56
Herald P. Fahringer ’56 was a celebrated New York City-based attorney who believed in the importance of individual rights. He focused his practice on white-collar criminal defense and First Amendment issues, taking 14 high-profile, controversial cases to the U.S. Supreme Court and losing only once.
About this Interview
Interview Date(s)
May 1, 2001
Occasion
Law Day
Interviewed By
Hon. Barbara Howe
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About Herald P. Fahringer
As a young man, Fahringer floundered until reading the trial scene in The Caine Mutiny ignited a desire in him to go to law school. One day, he walked into the law school building on West Eagle Street and had a conversation with Dean Jacob D. Hyman. His path—to become a lawyer—suddenly became clear.
“I think I got as good an education as anybody could get,” he said. “I didn’t have to go to Harvard for that.” The law professor who had the most influence in his life was Clyde Summers. “He opened my eyes to individual rights,” said Fahringer, “and I took all his courses.”
Other teachers who influenced him were Professors Hyman, Laidlaw, Lenhoff and Mugel.
“Jack Hyman’s trial courses were light-years ahead of other law schools’. He also brought in practitioners who talked to us about the realities of practice,” Fahringer said.
He admits that law school was a challenge for him. Within a short time after graduating, he formed the Buffalo law firm that became Lipsitz, Green, Fahringer, Roll, Schuler and James (later Salisbury and Cambria). In 1973, he moved to New York City and opened a branch office but maintained his relationship with the Buffalo firm.
He considers one of his greatest achievements getting a death penalty conviction reversed in an assigned case that set an indigent man free. Lawyers should devote more time to pro bono, he said.
Fahringer has 14 significant Supreme Court case wins, many on adult literature and pornography. He feels that in a free society the public should be allowed to choose what they want to read and see, and the government should not be involved. Prosecuting books or movies is censorship, he said.
Professor Summers instilled values and principles in Fahringer that he internalized: everyone is entitled to a fair defense, no matter how odious. Throughout his career he defended clients who included hit men for the mob; Claus Von Bulow, accused of trying to kill his socialite wife; Jean Harris, killer of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor; jazz drummer Buddy Rich, on drug charges; Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler; and Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw.
Born Nov. 5, 1927—Died Feb. 12, 2015
