Benjamin Aymar Sands

Benjamin Aymar Sands (July 27, 1853 – May 1, 1917) was an American lawyer from New York. Life Sands was born on July 27, 1853, at 80 Fifth Avenue in New York City, New York, the son of Samuel Stevens Sands and Mary Emily Ellis Aymar. Sands attended Columbia College, graduating from there with an A.B. in 1874. Two years later, he graduated from Columbia Law School with an LL.B. and was admitted to the bar. He initially practiced law as a member of the firm Webb and Sprague. In 1882, he helped organize the firm Bowers and Sands, which lasted until his death. He largely practiced corporation law and was employed as counsel in a number of litigations by many large financial and railroad companies. He was well-known as a corporate lawyer and was considered an authority on real estate titles. In 1886, he was appointed receiver of the Indianapolis, Decatur and Springfield Railroad, a position he served as until 1892. He was vice-president of the Colorado Midland Railway from 1891 to 1901, vice-president of the American Mortgage Company and the State Investing Company, a trustee of the Greenwich Savings Bank, chairman of the board of North British and Mercantile Insurance Company of London and Edinburgh, a director and executive committee member of the Terminal Warehouse Company, the Lincoln Trust Company, and the Fidelity Bank and Commonwealth Insurance Company, a director and auditing committee member of the United States Safe Deposit Company, and a director of the Mortgage Bond Company and the New York Trust Company. Sands' first law firm, Webb & Sprague, was a partnership he formed with H. Walter Webb, Henry L. Sprague, and Robert C. Cornell. He formed his second law firm, Platt & Bowers, with John M. Bowers and James N. Platt. The firm was renamed Bowers & Sands after Platt's death. In 1898, Frederic J. Middlebrook, James W. Gerard, and Latham G. Reed became partners in the firm. Gerard, who later became a New York Supreme Court Justice and United States Ambassador to Germany, retired from the firm in 1908. In 1911, William H. Van Benschoten became a member of the firm. In 1915, Latham G. Reed retired from the firm while Middleton S. Borland and Frank H. Sincerbeaux became associated with the firm.