Harold C. Pachios

Harold C. Pachios’s distinguished career has included service at highest levels of government, more than 30 years as a leader in Maine’s legal community, and commitment to the public good.

Harold was born in New Haven, Connecticut; grew up in Cape Elizabeth, Maine; and graduated from Princeton University in 1959. He served as a lieutenant aboard a U.S. Navy transport ship and then moved to Washington, D.C., where he earned a law degree from Georgetown University.

Harold’s commitment to the public good presented itself early in his career when he served as Deputy Congressional Liaison for the Peace Corps, a post in which he advised members of Congress and assisted the program's director, Sargent Shriver, on Congressional matters. He also assisted the task force that wrote the Federal legislation creating the Office of Equal Opportunity, helping to develop legislation to launch Head Start, VISTA, Job Corps, and civil legal aid to the poor, among other programs.

In 1969, after eight years in Washington during which he served as Associate White House Press Secretary under President Johnson, an attorney-advisor to the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, and a key staffer in Senator Edmund S. Muskie’s vice-presidential campaign, he returned to his home state of Maine.

Harold is a founding Partner of Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau & Pachios whose practice has focused on corporate, legislative, environmental, and international law.

In 1998, his law firm helped found the Frank M. Coffin Family Law Fellowship with the Maine Bar Foundation. Through the Coffin Fellowship, young lawyers provide legal representation to low-income parties in family law cases. Harold is a fellow of the Maine Bar Foundation and for 15 years he has served as Chairman of the Board of Visitors of the University of Maine School of Law. In addition, he is an Honorary Lifetime Trustee of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He also currently serves on the National Governing Board of Common Cause, the Board of Visitors for University of Southern Maine, the Board of the Senator George J. Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute, the Board of the Salzburg Seminar (Austria).