Birch Bayh, Former Rivkin Partner and U.S. Senator, Remembered

On March 14, 2019, Rivkin Radler lost a friend and former name partner, U.S. Senator Birch Bayh.

Birch joined Rivkin Radler in July 1985. He was introduced to Firm founder Len Rivkin when Len’s son John (also a firm partner) met Birch’s son Evan at the University of Virginia Law School. Evan went on to serve as Governor of Indiana from 1989-1997 and in the U.S. Senate from 1999 to 2011 in the seat formerly held by his father.

With Birch, the firm gained a Washington D.C. office on Eye Street. At the time, the firm was named Rivkin, Radler, Dunne & Bayh.

He served two terms as a U.S. senator (1963-1981) from Indiana, where, among other accomplishments, he authored two amendments to the U.S. Constitution and a bill considered the “Father of Title IX,” an act that gave women equal opportunity in colleges and universities. He was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972. In 1954 Birch was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives where he eventually became the youngest speaker of the house in Indiana history.

Rivkin Partner Bill Savino remembers him well. “Birch was a person of high purpose, first-rate character and ever committed to the good and peace of America and the world,” Bill said. “May he rest in peace.”

Birch is survived by his second wife, Katherine “Kitty” Halpin, Evan, son Christopher Bayh and four grandchildren.

Our thoughts are with the Bayh family.