AbstractThe ethanolysis of substituted phenylacetyl chlorides was examined at 20°C in a binary solvent mixture of benzene and ethanol. The variation of the rate in the degenerated second order reaction was examined in function of the influence of the substituents. Quite a good Hammett relation was found for the meta‐ and parasubstituted derivatives (p= +0.160), while the ortho‐substituted ones have a low rate and don't follow this rela