About Carlos Harrison
Carlos Harrison is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, two-time Emmy nominee, and author of 16 books ranging from biographies to legal issues (e.g., The Ghosts of Hero Street, Trained to Kill, and The Memorandum). A graduate of the University of South Florida, his articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Miami Herald, People, and other publications. Several of his articles for Super Lawyers have won awards from the Society for Professional Journalists.
Articles written by Carlos Harrison
Fighting 'Forever Chemicals'
How Rob Bilott's life became a mission to hold DuPont accountableIt began with a phone call he could barely understand. It became his life’s work, spurring two class-action lawsuits and a series of individual ones. It spawned dozens of magazine and newspaper articles, a movie and a book; and earned Rob Bilott, partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister’s Covington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati offices, the Right Livelihood Award, an international honor for tackling global problems that is often dubbed the “alternative Nobel Prize.” And more than 20 …
The Well-Grounded Career of Debbie Alsup
This Austin litigator has helped make Texas law—while making life better for abused childrenDebbie Alsup landed in law after her original high-flying plans were brought down to earth in college. Blame Baylor. Or thank it. “I wanted to be a pilot,” she says. After spending nearly 40 years at Thompson & Knight, and taking part in more than 100 appellate cases in state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, Alsup chuckles as she reflects on the happy accident that launched her legal life. Her ambition to become a commercial airline pilot began in high school, …
Game Plan
Bill Stark covers all the legal bases for his interactive-entertainment clientsWhen it comes to video games and esports, Bill Stark isn’t playing around. The Dallas-based Greenberg Traurig shareholder is co-chair—and co-founder—of the firm’s international video game and esports group, an innovative practice team that combines practice areas ranging from intellectual property and sports law to real estate and immigration. It involves 25 associates and shareholders in a dozen locations, including Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo. Stark and co-chair Steven Walkowiak …
'Women Don't Become Attorneys'
Happily for her clients and the lawyers she’s mentored along the way, Roberta Mandel didn’t take that adviceMadame X was an inspiration; Anna Nicole Smith, a revelation. Both changed Roberta Mandel’s life. Mandel maintains a richly varied solo practice, but when she started off, her focus was on appellate work. She had already handled close to 700 appeals by the time she was called in to help with the sensational battle over the burial of Smith’s body in 2007. The media melee thrust her front-and-center in the saga surrounding the former Playboy centerfold, ex-stripper, and octogenarian …
Walking the Talk
When it comes to diversity, Fort Lauderdale firm Kim Vaughan Lerner means businessListening to the partners at Kim Vaughan Lerner chime in on a freewheeling conference call feels like sitting in with siblings at a family gathering. They finish each other’s sentences, banter playfully, and correct each other’s stories about how they came into the group. Despite that comfortable dynamic, what they most have in common is how different they are. And that, they all agree, is a cornerstone of their firm’s success. “Nobody’s going to be able to address a particular …
Trail Blazer
Amy Emerson hits the ground running, whether she’s taming construction disputes or exploring trailsA movie poster-size photograph on Amy Emerson’s office wall reflects both who she is and who she isn’t. It’s an aerial picture of Manhattan, showing Wall Street and the soaring skyscrapers beyond. But it’s not a place she dreams of being—it’s a challenge she conquered. “I'm not a brick-and-concrete girl,” she says, “but I ran the New York Marathon.” Running is a defining force in Emerson’s life. Her now-husband, environmental litigator Jason Hill, introduced her to …
Technical Difficulties
Or why you should always bring a stack of boxes to courtIn 2017, T.J. Jones represented Dallas photographer Andrea Polito in a defamation trial after a newly married couple attacked Polito on social media over a disputed $125 fee for their wedding album. The posts went viral, destroying Polito’s business. The jury ordered the bride—a lifestyle blogger—and groom to pay Polito just over $1 million. En route to the successful verdict, Jones learned that Murphy’s Law applies to trial apps, too. This was actually my first jury trial ever. We …
Force for Nature
Bill Jackson has taken on cases involving Agent Orange and the Deepwater spill; this one is biggerBill Jackson says the case he’s currently handling is probably his biggest ever. That’s a high bar for someone who helped win $355 million in settlements over Agent Orange contamination of the Passaic River in New Jersey in 2014, then the next year made that amount look tiny by helping Louisiana recover billions in the $20 billion global settlement over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. “I guess, throughout my career,” he says, “each case, as I did it, seemed like I would never get …
'I'm in the Right Place'
How Laura Brown found her niche handling birth injury casesLaura Brown didn’t really plan on following her father and grandfather into the law. But the pre-med training she got before switching to the family’s legal legacy has certainly come in handy. “You have that fundamental basis of understanding of anatomy, physiology, histology,” she says. “So I may get a new topic that I haven’t had before, but I have that basic understanding of the process and, with some reading and studying, it’s pretty natural to pick up and understand on a …
Moving Society Forward
As Frank Scruggs sees it, that is the ministry of his workFrank Scruggs was just a boy, sitting amid a sea of high schoolers in his mother’s American history class, when he determined exactly how he wanted to make a difference in the world. It was the early 1960s, and the Fort Lauderdale elementary school he went to was segregated. So, too, the historic black high school where his mother taught. At the same time, the civil rights movement was in full swing and doors were opening. Scruggs wanted to be part of that change. “From the time I was old …
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