Donald Cyril Lubick

Donald Cyril Lubick (April 29, 1926 – February 8, 2022) was an American attorney and tax policy expert.

He served every Democratic President—from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama—and was the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy at the Department of the Treasury under both President Carter and President Clinton.

Lubick was born on April 29, 1926, in Buffalo, New York.

He graduated from Lafayette High School, where he was a member of the Debate Team and the Virgil Club, which studied the works of Homer, Ovid and other classics, in 1942 at the age of 16.

Lubick attended the University of Buffalo on a full-tuition scholarship and graduated in three years by including extra night and summer courses.

He received his bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, in September 1945.

At the University of Buffalo, Lubick was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

He graduated magna cum laude in 1949 and then spent a year as one of Harvard's first Teaching Fellows, promoting a new program including cross subject material for each first year student.

Lubick returned to his hometown of Buffalo and joined the law firm Hodgson, Russ, Andrews, Woods & Goodyear, one of the two largest law firms in Buffalo, as an associate in 1950.

He became a partner in the law firm in 1955.

Lubick chaired the Tax Reform Committee for the City of Buffalo in 1958 and 1959 and served on the Advisory Committee on Reform of the Election Laws of the New York State Legislature in 1974.

He chaired the American Bar Association's Committee on Domestic Relations Tax Problems, served on the Advisory Group to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and was a member of the American Law Institute.

Throughout his career, Lubick advocated for “efficiency, simplicity, and horizonal equity” in the tax code, and he valued teamwork and comradery among his co-workers.

While working in government, Lubick was known for his bipartisan relationships with members of Congress and support from both White House and Treasury Department officials.

He left the firm in 1961 to join the U.S. Department of the Treasury as Tax Legislative Counsel in charge of the lawyers in the Office of Tax Policy.

During the four decades from 1961 until 2001, Lubick served in the Department of the Treasury in the Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton Administrations.

Lubick left Hodgson Russ for the first time in September 1961 to serve as Tax Legislative Counsel, a position he held for two and a half years under both President Kennedy and President Johnson.

At the same time as he started in practice he served as an adjunct professor at the School of Law of the University at Buffalo (which became the State University of Buffalo in 1962).

While at the Treasury, Lubick worked on the development and passage of President Kennedy's tax reform legislation, the Revenue Act of 1962 (P.L. 87-834) and the Revenue Act of 1964 (P.L. 88-272).

He returned to the law firm in 1964.

His practice focused on individual and corporate tax advice, pension planning, and estate planning for a variety of clients, including Houdaille Industries (now IDEX Corporation), Cornell Aeronautical Lab, Computer Task Group Incorporated, Par Pharmaceutical, Kaiser Permanente, and the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

While in practice in Buffalo, Lubick was a member of the World Hospitality Group, which cooperated with the State Department in hosting foreign representatives visiting the U.S. to Niagara Falls and its area.

Lubick remained at the Treasury until 1964 before returning to Buffalo to practice law at Hodgson Russ.

Lubick left private practice again for the Treasury in 1977.

Laurence Woodworth, former Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee of Congress and President Carter's first Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, recruited Lubick to return to the Treasury Department in 1977.

Lubick joined the Carter Administration and initially served under Woodworth as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Legislation.

After serving in the Carter Administration, Lubick returned to Hodgson Russ in 1981.

He was elected Managing Partner and established the firm's Washington, D.C., office that year.

In 1989, he became a Licensed Foreign Legal Consultant by the Law Society of Upper Canada, and helped established Hodgson Russ's Canadian office, limited to U.S. law.

Lubick retired from Hodgson Russ in 1994, having served with the firm for parts of five decades, to work in the Clinton Administration.

In addition to the teaching at the University at Buffalo, Lubick taught a seminar on comparative corporate taxation after leaving the Treasury in 1999 at the American University of Washington College of Law.

He also served on then-President-elect Obama's 2008 transition team.

Following President Kennedy's election, his then-Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy, Stanley Surrey, asked Lubick to serve as Tax Legislative Counsel for the Office of Tax Policy at the Department of the Treasury, one of the highest tax policy positions in the Executive Branch.

Lubick was a registered Republican at the time.

As a result, prominent Democrats initially opposed his appointment.

Surrey appreciated Lubick's combination of practical experience and policy analysis.

The opposition relented after local Erie County Democrats intervened and the White House determined Lubick would be able to serve the Kennedy Administration well.

After serving in the 15th Army Air Force, Lubick relied upon the G.I. Bill to receive a law school education from Harvard Law School.

At the end of his first year of law school he was elected to join the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.

At the end of his second year he was invited to join the Harvard Law Review but decided to remain with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, of which he became president in his third year.