Laurence T. Sorkin

Background

Laurence T. Sorkin was born on October 20, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, United States. His professional life developed in New York's legal and academic environment, where commercial law, federal regulation, and competition policy formed major areas of practice during the second half of the twentieth century.

Sorkin's later career connected private legal practice with public-interest and scholarly institutions. He served on the boards of legal-service organizations, participated in bar-association committees, and maintained teaching and advisory relationships with law schools and competition-policy institutes.

Education

Sorkin received a Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, from Brown University in 1964. Brown, founded in 1764 in Providence, Rhode Island, is an Ivy League research university known for its open curriculum and emphasis on broad undergraduate study.

He earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale Law School in 1967 and a Master of Laws degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1968. Yale Law School, established in the nineteenth century, has long combined legal scholarship with public service and professional training. The London School of Economics, founded in 1895, specializes in the social sciences and provided Sorkin with an international setting for advanced legal study; his period there was supported by a Fulbright scholarship.

Career

Sorkin began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge J. Joseph Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1968 to 1969. The federal appellate courts review decisions from district courts and address questions of national legal significance, giving appellate clerkships a formative role in legal research and judicial analysis.

In 1969, Sorkin joined Cahill Gordon & Reindel in New York. He became a partner in 1975 and later served as senior counsel, practicing at the firm for more than forty-five years and heading its antitrust and trade regulation group. Cahill Gordon & Reindel is a New York law firm founded in 1919, with practices in litigation, corporate law, securities, and regulatory matters. Sorkin represented clients before the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and state and foreign competition authorities, and litigated federal and state antitrust matters.

His practice included investigations of international cartels, private treble-damages litigation, direct- and indirect-purchaser class actions, opt-out suits, and disputes involving the extraterritorial application of United States antitrust law. He participated in litigation connected with Empagran, a Supreme Court case concerning the reach of American antitrust law in international commerce.

Sorkin also taught law. He was a visiting lecturer at Yale University from 1971 to 1973 and later became an adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School. He has also taught or served as a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam Law School, Católica University School of Law in Lisbon, and the University of Freiburg Law School. These institutions are established centers for legal education in the United States and Europe, giving his teaching a comparative competition-law setting.

Achievements

• Sorkin headed Cahill Gordon & Reindel's antitrust and trade regulation group and represented clients before United States, state, and foreign competition authorities in cartel investigations and related litigation.

• He participated in significant private-enforcement and international antitrust matters, including litigation concerning the extraterritorial application of United States antitrust law in Empagran.

• He contributed to professional education through university teaching, conference lectures, and writing on antitrust, cartel enforcement, and competition law.

Works

• book

  • The International Handbook on Private Enforcement of Competition Law

    (Contributing author to an international handbook examinin...)

    2010

  • State Antitrust Law

    (Contributing author to a professional reference work addr...)

    2003

  • Understanding the Antitrust Laws

    (Co-authored with Jerrold G. Van Cise and William T. Lifla...)

    1986

Views

Sorkin's professional writing and teaching reflect a legal philosophy centered on the interaction between competition, private enforcement, and public regulation. His work addresses how antitrust law operates across federal, state, and international systems, particularly in cartel investigations, class actions, and the transnational reach of competition rules.

Membership

Sorkin participated in professional bar organizations and legal-service institutions, combining antitrust-law leadership with public-service work. His documented activities included committee and executive roles in the New York State Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, as well as board service for the Legal Aid Society and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

He also maintained long-term involvement with the Yale Law School Association, including service as president and later as an honorary member. His professional affiliations extended to the American Bar Association's Antitrust Law Section and advisory boards concerned with competition law and consumer antitrust studies.

• Served on the Executive Committee and chaired the Clayton Act Committee and Committee on Mergers of the Antitrust Law Section.

  New York State Bar Association , United States

  1987 - 1994

• Served on the Committee on Antitrust and Trade Regulation; later resumed participation from 1995.

  Association of the Bar of the City of New York , United States

  1974 - 1977

• Served as a director.

  Legal Aid Society , United States

  1988 - 1994

• Served on the board of directors.

  New York Lawyers for the Public Interest , United States

• Held leadership positions and served on the International Cartel Task Force.

  American Bar Association Antitrust Law Section , United States

• Served as president and later as an honorary member.

  Yale Law School Association , United States

  2007 - present

• Served on the advisory board.

  Fordham Competition Law Institute , United States

• Served on the advisory board at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

  Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies , United States

Connections

Sorkin is the father of Andrew Ross Sorkin, an American journalist, author, and television anchor associated with The New York Times, CNBC, and DealBook.

Son:

Andrew Ross Sorkin

Journalist, author, television anchor, and founder of DealBook.

References

• Competition Policy International author profile Documents Sorkin's career at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, antitrust practice, university teaching, education, Fulbright scholarship, professional leadership, and writing.
• Yale Law School Association Executive Committee Members Provides a biographical profile describing Sorkin as a retired Cahill Gordon & Reindel partner, antitrust practitioner, author, lecturer, and Yale Law School Association honorary member.
  2025
• Laurence T. Sorkin Profile Documents Sorkin's education, legal admissions, positions at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, university teaching, associations, and listed publications.
• Laurence T. Sorkin Profile | Martindale.com Documents Sorkin's education, New York and District of Columbia admissions, senior-counsel position, and practice areas in antitrust and litigation.