About Harris Meyer
Harris Meyer is a veteran legal and health care reporter and editor who has written for Super Lawyers, American Lawyer Media, ABA Journal, Kaiser Health News, Health Affairs, Medscape, Modern Healthcare, and many other publications. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and lives with his wife, Deborah, in Chicago.
Articles written by Harris Meyer
President for Life
Jeffrey Warren doesn’t like to talk about himself, but he came through for Steinbrenner, protected Ponzi victims, and his firm won’t let him not be its leaderMake no mistake: Jeffrey W. Warren could tell lots of war stories. Widely considered one of the best bankruptcy lawyers in Florida, he has a list of accomplishments that includes going before the U.S. Supreme Court (and winning), representing volatile New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (in a bet-the-company case), and representing defrauded investors in a string of only-in-Florida Ponzi schemes. And before he was a lawyer, Warren was helping defuse campus confrontations as a University …
A More Inclusive Way
Maurice Grant makes it his business to boost diversityMaurice Grant, a tall, slender man in a tailored Brioni suit, stands on stage, introducing the evening’s honoree at a recent fundraising dinner for Chicago State University. Grant, board chairman of CSU’s foundation, has not forgotten his roots. He tells attendees that the South Side school needs help because its students are mostly people of color, many of them struggling single parents. Grant, 56, is co-founder and principal at the seven-lawyer firm Grant Schumann in Chicago. His parents, …
No Excuses
How Robert Wayne Pearce stared down personal disasterRobert Wayne Pearce, a Boca Raton securities attorney with a long string of wins for his investor and stockbroker clients, doesn’t let much get in his way. But mediator Jeff Grubman recalls one time Pearce strategically called attention to his disability—he’s quadriplegic—to intimidate a young and inexperienced opponent. Grubman opened that mediation with his usual statement: that it makes sense to settle every case. Pearce took issue with that. “I get my kicks by trying cases,” …
The Overdog
Barry Kaplan is a defense lawyer to the boneIn an April 2010 New York Times photo, Barry Kaplan stands at the side of his best-known client, former Washington Mutual CEO Kerry Killinger, as U.S. senators grill the exec on how the nation’s largest bank failure came about. “It was challenging and fascinating to work on a case that got so much attention,” says Kaplan, who succeeded in settling shareholder class-action and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. civil suits against Killinger, and winning dismissal of derivative cases. The …
Franchise Player
The quiet persuasiveness of West Palm Beach business litigator Sid StubbsFor three years, Sidney A. Stubbs did everything he could to keep former Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft partner Jim Beasley from recovering his partnership capital, profits, attorney’s fees and punitive damages after Beasley claimed the New York-based firm wrongfully expelled him. “My financial life was on the line,” says Beasley. You might expect him to bear some hard feelings toward the veteran Florida litigator. Yet in the years since that nationally noted case—which inspired many …
The Big-Picture Man
Tacoma attorney Jack Connelly’s long-shot cases have triggered major reformsOn a recent morning, Jack Connelly drove from his Tacoma office through rush-hour traffic to hear a Seattle-area lawyer pitch him a case involving a less-than-sympathetic victim. One defendant had a strong argument; the other had no liquid assets. “There’s a wrong there, but it’s a difficult case,” Connelly told the lawyer. He took it anyway. “Some cases you take for various reasons, and over time they turn out way better than you expected,” he says. In this instance, he was …
The Incredible Journey of Stephen Zack
From privileged boyhood to impoverished youth to a year as the ABA’s first Hispanic presidentAt age 13, Stephen Zack was taken from his parents and locked up overnight. He didn’t know if he would see them again. His family members, detained separately, were wealthy Cubans whose businesses had just been confiscated by Castro’s government. In the end, Zack and his family were released and sent to Miami. But the feeling of powerlessness he experienced in that locked room made him want to become a lawyer. Four decades later, the Miami litigator played a notable role in the Bush v. Gore …
Fostering Hope
Howard Talenfeld is fighting for Florida’s most vulnerable kidsWhen Mike Dunlavy met Fort Lauderdale attorney Howard Talenfeld, he had left foster care and graduated from college, and was looking for a direction in life. Talenfeld helped involve him in a group called Florida Youth SHINE, which the lawyer had played a role in launching. Composed of former and current foster children, its mission is to push for improvements in Florida’s foster care system. Dunlavy helped the group lobby the Legislature for better funding and education, and even became its …
The Green River Killer’s Lawyer
Mark Prothero knows it’s a label that will stickDriving south of Sea-Tac Airport in his Ford Ranger pickup, Mark W. Prothero describes a seemingly ordinary suburban life—son of a boat-builder, long marriage to his high school sweetheart, father of two athletic children, swim coach, school volunteer. But as he cruises just blocks from his office in Kent, he animatedly points out bridges and gullies along the Green River where, over a nearly 20-year span of time, his infamous client Gary Ridgway dumped some of the bodies of young prostitutes …
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