About Harris Meyer
Harris Meyer is a veteran legal and healthcare 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
‘A Lot of Chutzpah’
But octogenarian Bob Parks doesn’t fight—until he needs toBob Parks doesn’t make small talk or fight with opposing lawyers over minor things like scheduling hearings. The famed Miami plaintiff’s attorney has never had time to waste. At 80, that hasn’t changed. “He is a strong, no-nonsense guy, a very able lawyer,” says aviation and aerospace attorney Aaron Podhurst, Parks’ former partner for nearly 25 years and a litigation legend in his own right. “He only fights over what he has to,” says Thomas Scott, a former U.S. attorney and …
Special Force
After 50-mile marches and parachute jumps, former U.S. Army Ranger John Agnew may have been overprepared for courtroom combatAs a 19-year-old college student, John Agnew was partying too much and feeling lost. So he went to the Army recruiting office and asked, “What’s the hardest job?” “The Rangers,” the recruiter replied. The enlistment officer later tried to discourage him, noting that Ranger duty is dangerous and doesn’t pay extra. But the son of a Presbyterian minister was not dissuaded. The highlight of his Army career, Agnew says, was participating in three grueling Best Ranger competitions. …
Marilyn Holifield on Changing the World
The Miami lawyer’s accomplishments range from spurring prison reform in Georgia to tenaciously defending employersWhen Marilyn Holifield takes people to art exhibits, she advises them to look at each work without reading the plaque. Otherwise, she says, they’re “reacting to sociology” rather than to the piece itself. She prefers that people look at her legal career in the same way—without thinking first about the minefield of race relations she’s navigated since she started working in 1972, straight out of Harvard Law School. But skipping over her “plaque” is hard to do, because Holifield’s …
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 …
Find top lawyers with confidence
The Super Lawyers patented selection process is peer influenced and research driven, selecting the top 5% of attorneys to the Super Lawyers lists each year. We know lawyers and make it easy to connect with them.
Find a lawyer near you