A scion of the Cantacuzino family, his parents were Basile Cantacuzino and Pulcheria Rosetti-Bălănescu; he had four sisters (one of whom died in childhood) and two brothers. Born in Fântâna Mare, Suceava County, he studied philosophy and law at the Royal Saxon Polytechnic Institute in Dresden and the Academy of Lausanne. He then studied law at Heidelberg University and at the University of Paris, where he received a law degree in 1877. In 1878, he became an alternate judge at the Iași courthouse. Between 1885 and 1900, he was a full judge there, as well as an attorney at the Iași appeals court. From 1900 until his death, he was a lawyer in private practice. Starting in 1901, he was a professor in the civil law department of the University of Iași. During World War I, from 1916 to 1918, he was the university's rector. His most important volume was the 1921 "Elementele dreptului civil" ("The Elements of Civil Law"), in which he depicted the chief elements of the Romanian civil law system.