Robert D. Rachlin

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Robert D. Rachlin is a Vermont, U.S. lawyer.^[1] He is a partner in Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC, the state's largest law firm, practicing in the firm's Burlington, Vermont office.^[2]

Rachlin spent most of his legal career handling cases for business clients.

[edit] Guantánamo clients

He volunteered to the Center for Constitutional Rights to serve as an attorney for detainess in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. In an interview Rachlin said:^[2]

"This is not a question of whether they deserve a lawyer," he said. "This is a question of whether the system should be allowed to function. The minute you're depriving the most unpopular person of a lawyer, you're setting a precedent. The next thing that happens is you deprive someone a little less popular, and then eventually you're depriving your political opponents.

"We're protecting our fellow citizens, as well as these people."

Rachlin has two clients who are Guantánamo detainees, Algerian Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane] and Saudi Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi.^[2] Between August 2005 and April 2006 Rachlin made five trips to Guantánamo. He has paid for his travel and accommodation out of his own pocket.

Al-Sharbi is one of the ten Guantánamo detainees who faces charges before a military commission. Al-Sharbi wants to decline legal representation. Rachlin is trying arrange for Al-Sharbi to talk, by phone, with his parents, hoping they will be able to convince him to accept Rachlin's legal assistance and that of the detailed military counsel.

In reply to the allegations against Ameziane Rachlin has said: "There's nothing here that shows that he so much as held a firearm or did anything against the United States -- he's one of those guys who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. There's nothing more here than guilt by association^[3]."

Rachlin serves as a faculty member of Vermont Law School. He is also a concert pianist and co-founder of the Vermont Chamber Group.