Bill Lascher is not the first to write under the “Lascher at Large” banner. Decades ago, Lascher’s father, the late Edward L. Lascher, started a column popular in the legal community under the same title. Here’s the story of that column, as told by Lascher & Lascher, a Ventura-based law firm founded by my father and remaining in operation until 2011. Clips of Edward L. Lascher’s original Lascher at Large columns can still be found on that firm’s Web Site.
Edward Leonard Lascher grew up in the Chicago area. During the last few weeks of World War II, he joined the Army at age 17, entered the Japanese Language Program and, later, joined the Airborne Infantry. After his discharge, he attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, followed by the University of Michigan Law School.
After a year of practice in Indiana, Ed moved to Southern California in the early 1950s. He worked for NBC and then for the Marquardt Corporation, a defense contractor, before starting a solo practice in Van Nuys in May, 1958. Ed began focusing on handling appeals and transformed appellate practice from back office ghostwriting to highly respected speciality. Ed was instrumental in founding the prestigious California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and served as its president in 1974-75. He served on the State Bar Board of Governors from 1975 to 1978.
Early in his career, Ed began writing “From the Foolscap” for the San Fernando Valley Bar Bulletin. Initially a recap of law review articles, that column evolved into Ed’s observations on the legal scene. Shortly after Ed moved his practice to Ventura in 1967, he changed the name of the column to “Lascher at Large in the Law Reviews” (with a tiger logo) and moved it first to the State Bar Journal, and eventually to the Los Angeles Daily Journal, where the column appeared monthly until Ed’s death in 1991.
