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
Essentially Allyson Ho
A harp performance at Sandra Day O’Connor’s request came early in a legal career that is hitting all the right notesMany lawyers have appeared before the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, but Allyson N. Ho is likely the only one who’s also played the harp for them. The concert came while she was a law clerk for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The appearance came a few years later, after she had worked for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and as a special assistant on policy to President George W. Bush, on her way to finding her path as an appellate lawyer at both the state and federal levels. All that …
The A-Team
Tampa appellate duo Steve Brannock and Celene Humphries smoke Big TobaccoOn March 14, 2013, the chuck wagon bell clanged loudly in the downtown Tampa law office of Brannock & Humphries. It didn’t mean dinner was served; just justice. That day, Florida’s Supreme Court issued a pivotal opinion in the long-running battle between U.S. tobacco companies and thousands of smokers and their survivors. The 6-1 decision upheld the premise that Big Tobacco knew nicotine is dangerous and addictive, and hid those facts from the public. Most significantly, it meant the …
Making It, Baking It, Taking It
Office Depot’s Elisa D. Garcia C. makes it her business to know the businessEditor’s note: Elisa D. Garcia C., as per the Spanish tradition, uses the second initial to honor her maternal roots (Canedo). Office Depot’s Elisa D. Garcia C. has impersonated Elvis on a Las Vegas stage, can prep a pepperoni pizza in 44 seconds flat, and started college wanting to see dead people. Not the background you normally find on a general counsel providing legal direction for a global corporation that boasted about $11 billion in sales for 2012. Did we mention she also happens to …
Marshaling the Evidence
Drew Neville does his homework. And then he does it againDrew Neville recalls his first case vividly. His blind client sued her neighbor, whose new fence encroached on her strawberry patch. “She was very offended at this,” he says. “Of course, the issue came up about how in the world could my client knew there was encroachment if in fact she was blind.” She lost the suit and paid him with a large chocolate cake. “I ate every bit of it.” That was decades ago. These days, Neville, a partner at the Oklahoma City firm Hartzog Conger Cason …
Military Man
Former Marine Patrick J. McLain has 10 kids and a strong sense of right and wrongThree of Patrick J. McLain’s four passions—the law, the military and Catholicism—are represented on the conference room walls of his Dallas office. Framed certificates announce admissions to all four branches of military appellate courts, and volumes of federal statutes fill shelves of a wooden case: Semper Fi: The Definitive Illustrated History of the U.S. Marines, sits near The Book of Saints: A Day-by-Day Illustrated Encyclopedia. Movies in the small collection by the TV include True …
The Man Who Said No to LBJ
Shannon Ratliff chose politics over ranching, then law over politicsShannon Ratliff says he left the small Texas town where his dad ran a mercantile store so that he wouldn’t “always be known as Tom’s boy.” Now he might be known as the only person from Sonora to have said “no” to a job at the White House. Ratliff was an aide to Lyndon Johnson during the turbulent years when the U.S. senator rose to vice president, then president. Today, he is a Democratic powerhouse in a deeply conservative state, a key player in billion-dollar oil and gas disputes …
Power Puncher
‘Rocky’ Rodriguez was on the front lines of the 2000 presidential recount and the Terri Schiavo controversyThey call her “Rocky.” Much like the fictional boxer, Raquel Rodriguez is used to stepping into tough situations and going the distance. She got the nickname from a classmate at law school. “I think it was my willingness to get in the ring with the professors and not be intimidated,” she says. It’s been that way throughout Rodriguez’s career. “Whenever there was something that didn’t quite fit into a neat box, I got it,” she says. “Then I just got this reputation for …
Aesthetically Yours
How to practice law in an art galleryArt and the law find common ground in Michael Maher's Winter Park office, whose walls are adorned with nearly 50 pieces from his extensive collection of signed prints. Visitors are treated to works by contemporary masters such as American pop artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg and abstractionist Elizabeth Murray. Maher's staff has adopted the art as its own. "It's funny, because they have all grown to love this," he says. "They will take people around to show them. They're very proud. …
Where Pit Bulls Fear to Tread
Anywhere near attorney Paul GellerTwo summers ago as Paul Geller was driving home, he came across a pregnant woman and her dog being mauled by a pair of pit bulls. Unbelievably, other cars were just driving by. Geller screeched to a stop, jumped out, and kicked and shouted at the attacking dogs until they ran off, later to be captured by police. After an ambulance rushed to the scene, Geller even drove the woman's dog to an emergency clinic. It probably helped that the class-action litigator with Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman …
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