D. Allan Horwich (1944-2025)

We have learned from Allan's wife Carolyn that he died on July 1 after a 5-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

 

A resident of Old Town in Chicago, Allan came to Princeton from Westside HS in Omaha, NE. At Princeton, he majored in Philosophy and was a member of WWS. He notes that his favorite professor was Walter Kaufman and favorite course was in religious language, the topic of his senior thesis. Roommates included JP Godich, Ken Boudwin, and Dave Garlow.

 

Following Princeton, Allan entered the University of Chicago Law School, earning his JD in 1969. He then joined a predecessor of Schiff Hardin & White in Chicago, where he spent his career. Allan focused on securities litigation and also taught at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law as a Professor of Practice. Allan mentioned that, while he learned nothing about securities law at Princeton, he did learn to think and write.

 

Schiff Hardin & White is also where Allan met his wife, Carolyn, who survives him. Their four children are Benjamin '99, Diana, Eleanor, and Flannery. Allan commented in his 25th reunion essay that the family names were cleverly chosen so that they can be lined up in A, B, C, D, E, F order. Many have also noted Allan's dapper professional appearance and fondness for bow ties.

 

Click here for Allan's Legacy.com obituary. Note that his July 9 11:00 AM private graveside service will be livestreamed by The Goldman Funeral Group. There will be a later gathering, TBA, where guests are invited to select at least one book from Allan's large library.

Nassau Herald

25th Reunion Essay

My first three years immediately following graduation were spent, largely uneventfully, attending the University of Chicago Law School. During my first law-school summer I worked in the U.S. Attorney's office in my native Omaha, where the steady diet of Migratory Bird Act and Federal Tort Claims cases confirmed my belief that Omaha was not where I wanted to make my career. Between my second and third years in law school I was a summer associate in Chicago at what is now Schiff Hardin & Waite. I returned there after graduation to become a “green goods” lawyer and to play the Selective Service lottery. Though I won the lottery, a variety of factors conspired to divert me to litigation, where I have toiled ever since, concentrating in securities litigation (defending those unjustly accused of defrauding the unwary) with a recent detour in utility regulatory work (the only field I know where issues in the millions are lost in the rounding).
 
During the last six years I have spent much of my time as a member of Schiff Hardin’s management committee, currently as its vice-chairman. I find it remarkable that practically my entire career has been devoted to matters (litigation and management) for which I had virtually no academic training—except to think and to write.
 
Schiff Hardin has also contributed immeasurably to the non-professional side of my life, as I met my wife Carolyn there. We were married in 1975 after a whirlwind (or at least brief) courtship. We now have four remarkable children, Benjamin, Diana, Eleanor and Flannery. (Careful readers will note that the initials of our first names are A, B, C, D, E and F -- clever, eh?)
 
My main accomplishments; succeeding professionally, having a wonderful family, and weighing less than I did when I entered Princeton.

40th Reunion Essay

I remain a full-time partner at the law firm I joined out of law school in 1969, with a panoramic view from the 74th floor of the Sears Tower where we have been since 1974 and will remain for the foreseeable future. Since 1999 I have taught part-time at Northwestern University Law School, conveniently located just a couple of miles from my downtown office. I teach courses in securities regulation, a stimulating supplement to my law practice. I have also published a number of articles in the field. Outside of work my wife of nearly 31 years and I have been devoted to raising four wonderful independent children, our most important accomplishment. We live in Old Town in Chicago - - I have never lived more than about two miles from my office -- which gives me maximum flexibility in structuring my life, not being a slave to a train schedule or suffering a lengthy commute. In fact, weather and energy permitting I walk to work, my most regular form of exercise. (Another accomplishment - - I weigh only about a dozen pounds more than when I graduated.) With the nest effectively empty, though often visited, we have been redoing our townhouse of 20 years room by room. We live a fairly quiescent life, doing what we enjoy (reading, movies, theater), keeping in touch with our far flung children, and hoping that the world we leave to our children will bring more peace, more freedom and less debt than we experience today.

50th Reunion Essay

After law school I joined the firm now known as Schiff Hardin LLP, where I remain a partner (semi-retired, more or less). There I met my wife Carolyn; we recently celebrated our 40th anniversary. Our greatest accomplishment is our four children, who have further brightened our lives with five, soon to be six, grandchildren.

 

My law practice was devoted largely to what I suppose is best described as corporate litigation, with a focus on securities litigation (defense). I had the great good fortune in 1999 to be asked to teach the course in securities law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law (f/k/a Northwestern Law f/k/a Northwestern University School of Law). Moving from an adjunct to a part-time then full-time senior lecturer and most recently Professor of Practice (a non-tenure title that is intended to reflect that I know how to practice what I teach), as I write this I am finishing my seventh year with a full load of a variety of securities law courses (basic securities regulation, securities litigation and enforcement, and insider trading).

 

Before I entered academia I had published a few scholarly articles, and though writing is not part of my responsibilities at Pritzker I have continued to publish, focusing on securities law and more particularly insider trading. Everything is listed on the bio on my firm's website, www.schiffhardin.com, if you need to read something to address insomnia.

 

As noted, I remain a partner at Schiff Hardin, where I am called on from time to time to help with thorny legal issues or serve on firm committees -- I have long left the heavy litigation lifting to others.

 

About ten years ago as the result of an annual physical -- which I highly recommend, whatever the "conventional wisdom" may be -- I was diagnosed with a precursor of, and then what became, active multiple myeloma. No need to look it up, it's what Tom Brokaw has. Fortunately, I did not suffer the effects that many, such as Brokaw, do, but treatment was required. I took a year off in 2007 to undergo back to back stem cell transplants to replace my blood-producing system. While the disease returned a few years back one of those incredibly expensive drugs you read about is keeping me going, and in recent years a number of other drugs have been approved for this disease, and so I am optimistic that I will remain more or less symptom-free for many years.

 

I have no plans to retire from teaching. Carolyn and I travel often to visit our children and grandchildren, who live coast to coast -- none in Chicago -- and travel the more or less half of each year when I am not required to be on campus to teach, most often to Europe. I've developed a fascination with Central Europe, particularly Vienna, to which I will be traveling this summer for my tenth visit. No, I did not study that at Princeton, and no I do not speak German (even after my one semester of middle level study of the language to fulfill a distribution requirement, as I recall).

 

While my contact with Nassau over the years has been limited, especially after my son graduated in 1999, I have fond memories and recognize I would not be the person I have become, with whatever success has come my way, without the four years I spent there.

Masked Man - 2022

Reading to three grandkids in Raleigh-Durham, 2017

Classmate Tributes and Memories

Fred Hartmann:

 

Although Allan and I were classmates at both Princeton and the University of Chicago Law School, we did not meet until the summer of 1969 when we both started at the Chicago-based law firm that became known as Schiff Hardin & Waite. In large part, that probably was because by the time we graduated from law school I was married with two children, while Allan still lived in the dorm.
 
We quickly became and remained friends, becoming partners at the same time and eventually the only two remaining of the class of six that began with the firm in 1969. 
 
One other thing Allan and I have in common is that we both had exceptional wives. Allan met Carolyn, his wife to be, when they were working together at Schiff. While Allan and I have been good work friends, Carolyn and my wife Sally, who died two years ago, were very close best friends. As Jon Holman wrote in our 55th Reunion Book,"... everybody loves Sally. Fred is great, but he's no Sally." For decades, Carolyn and Sally had monthly extended Sunday brunch together as often as possible.
 
Allan and Carolyn have four children and many grandchildren. I don't know who gets credit for the concept but their children's initials, along with "A" for Allan and "C" for Carolyn, are reflected in their family vehicle's license plate: "ABCDEF H".

 

Mike Janis:

Among the entire group, I did not know Allan as well as the other roommates. What I do recall, he was cerebral, dry sense of humor and better behaved than the rest of us.

 

Phil Faillace:

Ron Beall, Tom Eismeier, Michael Forastiere, Bob Jackson, Ted Stanger and I, in various combinations, frequently dined together in Wilcox. Often, we shared the good fortune of having Alan join us. The groups’ conversations usually held a lighthearted tone, but could turn to serious topics that evoked “spirited” discussions.
 
Whether lighthearted or spirited, Alan’s well considered contributions steered the back-and-forth toward appropriate displays of emotion, accompanied sometimes by raucous laughter and at other times by contemplative silence. Insight and sensitivity amplified the effect of his always naturally courteous and kind behavior. He was easy to like, trust and respect.
 
On the Friday of Houseparties Weekend during our senior year, I was belatedly completing a graduate fellowship application that had to be received in New York by 5 PM. My then girlfriend and now wife, Sheila, was coming to Princeton on a train due to arrive about 5 PM. I had no way of letting her know I would not be there to greet her and escort her to her room in Wilcox.
 
Luckily, I saw Alan shortly before I had to catch the train to New York. I showed him my wallet photo of Sheila (gorgeous) and asked him to do me the tremendous favor of being her TEMPORARY escort until I returned. Alan and Sheila had never met, so Alan would have to convince Sheila that he was legit, a gentleman and a scholar with whom she could feel safe. To this day, I can think of no better man for the task.
 

Years later, Sheila and I saw Alan at a reunion event. We enjoyed a few good laughs together as we reminisced about that afternoon when Alan saved my marriage—two years before the wedding. Alan introduced us to his delightful son, Ben, who had just been graduated from Princeton summa cum laude. The apple truly did not fall far from the tree.

 

JP Godich:

Al was my freshman roommate in Patton Hall Along with Ken Boudwin and Dave Garlow. He was quiet and studious but very friendly along with an enjoyably quirky sense of humor. After freshman year he joined Wilson and took a single in ‘38 Hall near the suite holding the rest of our Patton entryway friends. He majored in philosophy and my recollection is that he aced the LSAT and thus had his choice of law schools. He chose Chicago and ultimately joined a major law there then known as Shiff Harden. He practiced securities law, made partner and was an adjunct professor at one of the law schools in Chicago.  He had battled multiple myeloma for nearly a decade or more but remained active and engaged participating in a zoom call set up to honor our deceased roommate Henry Rutledge in late February of this year. That’s the basics.

 

 

Eleanor Horwich Crusoe (daughter):

From our first Father’s Day in 1983 to what will be our last in 2025, you’ve always been there in all the ways you needed to be. I can say with confidence that I am so lucky to be your daughter. Love to you always, Daddy.

 

Eleanor, Allan, and Carolyn - Early in 2025

Quote and photo from Instagram

 

Posted July 3 by Eleanor on Instagram

 

If you have photos or memories that you wish to share, please send them to the '66 Memorial Team (66_MemorialTeam@tiger1966.org). We will add them to this page.