James A. MacLachlan, Professor of Law, Emeritus, died Monday, aged 75, in an automobile accident in Tennessee. He was on his way to Cambridge to play in the annual baseball game between the Law school faculty and the staff of the Law Review.

MacLachlan, who retired in 1960, was an authority on bankruptcy and creditor's rights and was one of the original members of the National Bankruptcy Conference whose recommendations were embodied in the Chandler Act of 1938. He also wrote two books on creditor's rights, but is perhaps most fondly remembered as a great athlete.

"He was a physical fitness fiend," one colleague reminisced. "You were most likely to find him on the Cambridge Common playing baseball with kids."

It is said that on his honeymoon in France he would put his wife on the train and then bicycle alongside.

In 1948 MacLachlan obtained court permission to change the spelling of his name from McLaughlin, the version attached to his family by a clerical error years ago in Scotland.

Descendant from a long line of University of Michigan presidents, MacLachlan taught at Harvard from 1924 to 1960. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1916.

He is survived by his wife and five sons.