Lauren D. Rachlin

Lauren Rachlin graduated from Harvard Law School in 1951. His father, Harry A. Rachlin, graduated from UB Law in 1926. Lauren Rachlin was concerned after his father passed that a generation of great lawyers, who served as the bridge between the turn of the century and the midcentury, were lost. Names such as Dean Carlos Alden, Guy Moore (who prosecuted President McKinley’s assassin), Walter and Bill Mahoney (brilliant brothers on opposite sides of the political fence) and Harold Boreanaz (a great criminal defense attorney) could be forgotten. He saw the need for an oral history project and became an advocate and supporter, to memorialize a great law school and the legal tradition of Western New York.

Rachlin went to Lafayette and Bennett high schools in Buffalo, UB for undergraduate and Harvard for law school. He was young when he started, graduating from high school at 16, college at 19 and law school at 22. Rachlin always wanted to be a lawyer; he never knew about anything else. Although his father was a lawyer, he didn’t set foot in his office until after he graduated. Rachlin said Harry was “ecstatic” when Lauren became a lawyer. On his first day out of law school, he joined his father’s firm, now named Rachlin and Rachlin.

The firm built up to seven lawyers. In 1981, it merged with Kavinoky Cook. He spent 25 years with Kavinoky as head of the firm’s Division of International Practice, then worked on NAFTA trade agreement disputes.

In 2003, Rachlin became a partner in the Buffalo office of Hodgson Russ Andrews Woods and Goodyear. He had a corporate international practice primarily for Canada and the United States, because he had an office near the border, and usually dealt with Canadian companies. He described it as “U.S. law for Canadians—or Europeans, or anyone coming into the States, or the other way around. They don’t practice in other countries, but they do know how to get the right legal contacts abroad.”

At one time, he was interested in human rights law, but realized it was a hard way to make a living. Thus he shifted his focus to international commercial law.

Rachlin would like his legacy to be something that’s not his alone, but the knowledge that one person can make a difference, “and the law is a great platform for doing that.”

In addition to the Oral History Project, Rachlin originated the state Bar’s internship abroad program for law students and consulted with UB Law’s New York City Program in Finance and Law.

Born Feb. 6, 1929—Died March 18, 2016