Professor of Lwów University, dean of its law department (1889–1890) and the University's rector (1908–1909), he was also an activist in the Polish National Democracy movement. In 1911, from January to June he was Railway Minister in the I.R. Government for Cisleithania in Vienna led by Richard von Bienerth-Schmerling. In 1918 he was the third and last Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918) before the Kingdom's transformation into the Second Polish Republic.