Richard F. Griffin ’57

After graduating from Canisius College, Griffin was influenced to study law by a neighbor who was a Supreme Court law clerk, and a family member who was a lawyer who impressed him as authoritative. As UB law school was local and affordable, he worked his way through college and paid for law school himself. He believed in retrospect he made a wonderful choice.

Griffin did well in law school. His most influential professors were Dean Hyman and Donald Lubick, a tax partner from Hodgson Russ who taught corporate reorganizations and who worked in the Carter administration. Griffin graduated with 50 students from the West Eagle Street building. 

He worked for John Hancock Insurance through law school because he married during the winter recess of his first year at law school, and he and his wife had their first child in his sophomore year on the eve of Dr. Lenhoff’s exam in Legislation. His wife, Dr. Jane Flanagan, was a chemist at Linde Air. Their second child came a year later, a few days before the exam for Lubick’s tax seminar. Griffin did well on both exams; he received the highest mark in the seminar.

Dean Jacob Hyman was a favorite teacher. He took his Constitutional Law course and the seminar in Home Rule Local Government. After law school, Hyman served as one of the advisers on the school desegregation case in the 1970s that Griffin tried. 

Griffin loved private practice. He was a former partner in two prestigious Buffalo law firms and a former Bar Association of Erie County president who won multiple awards and honors for his work in the courts and the community. Throughout his career, he has had several high-profile cases.

In 1962, a lawsuit led him to a friendship with the famous Black Muslim leader Malcolm X, after Griffin won Attica prisoners the right to practice their Muslim religion while incarcerated. They met when Griffin asked Malcolm X to be an expert witness in the case.

In the 1970s, Griffin was hired to represent plaintiffs who alleged that Buffalo’s public schools were illegally segregated by race. The case resulted in a ruling by U.S. District Judge John T. Curtin, who ordered a massive desegregation program that changed the makeup of every city school. The case was better known as the Buffalo busing case. It had an enormous impact on the community, as magnet schools were created.

Toward the end of his career, Griffin evolved from litigation to mediation. He was a trailblazer when he helped establish the mediation practice in federal court with Judge Skretny. He now advises people not to litigate.

Born Feb. 22, 1933—Died Oct. 14, 2019