Gordon Sinykin served as President of the Wisconsin Law Foundation in the mid-1970s and was on the board and Executive Committee until his death in 1991. He was a leader in fundraising efforts for the Lawyer Hotline, Mock Trial and Dane County Mediation programs, Project Inquiry (which involved lawyers teaching high school students), and for State Bar publications,
On Being 18 and
The Bill of Rights – An Introduction.
Sinykin was an organizer of the National Conference of Bar Foundations (NCBF). He served as its president and his efforts helped move its membership from a few state bar foundations to nearly all state bar foundations, including all large local bar foundations and several Canadian bar foundations. The NCBF is more than 100 strong today.
He served as president of the Dane County Bar Association, on the State Bar Board of Governors, as a Wisconsin representative to the American Bar Association, and along with Assistant Attorney General Warren Resh, he won the 1961 case of
Lathrop v. Donahue, which upheld integration of the Wisconsin Bar.
Sinykin served Wisconsin as an important member of the campaigns of Gov. Phillip F. La Follette and Sen. Robert M. La Follette Jr. and in the formation of the Progressive Party of Wisconsin in 1934. He was also a member of the Judicial Commission, a drafter of the insurance code, and served in several appointed positions in Dane County and the city of Madison.
A major in the U.S. Air Force during WWII, Sinykin received the Bronze Star and witnessed the signing of the Japanese surrender on the Battleship Missouri.