George Harris is a litigation partner in the San Francisco and Sacramento offices. His practice focuses on complex civil and criminal litigation matters, including many high profile cases, at the trial and appellate level in state and federal court.

Mr. Harris has handled a wide range of civil litigation matters, including litigation in areas of professional responsibility, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, trade secrets, insurance coverage and bad faith, product liability, environmental cleanup, commercial and construction contracts, and real estate. He has also represented clients in commercial arbitrations both domestically and internationally.

Mr. Harris’s criminal practice has included cases involving charges of bid rigging, perjury, false government claims, tax evasion, money laundering, commodities fraud, and interstate transportation of explosives. In the fall of 1992, Mr. Harris was appointed to serve as associate counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh in order to assist as trial counsel in the prosecution of former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

Mr. Harris received his law degree from Yale University in 1982, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Coffin in the First Circuit Court of Appeals. He began legal practice at the San Francisco firm of Altshuler & Berzon, moving to Morrison & Foerster in 1987 and becoming a partner in 1990. In 1996, he left the partnership to assume a teaching position at the University of Utah Law School, where he taught courses in trial advocacy, appellate advocacy, civil procedure, and legal ethics. He returned to the firm in 2001. Mr. Harris has also served as Director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution and Director of the Appellate and International Advocacy program at the University of Pacific McGeorge School of Law, where he has taught appellate and international advocacy, criminal law, criminal procedure and legal ethics.

Publications

• Global Issues in Legal Ethics, co-author with J. Moliterno (ThomsonWest 2007)
• Practicing Persuasive Written and Oral Advocacy: Case File Four, co-author with D. Miller and M. Vitiello (Aspen, 2006)
• “The Rule of Law and the War on Terror: The Professional Responsibilities of Executive Branch Lawyers in the Wake of 9/11” 1 Journal of National Security Law & Policy 409 (2005)
• “Terrorism, War and Justice: The Concept of the Unlawful Enemy Combatant,” 26 Loyola of Los Angeles Int’l and Comparative Law Review 31 (2003)
• Book Review: “Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security,” 36 Cornell International Law Journal 135 (2003)
• “The Ethics of Middle-Class Access to Legal Services and What We Can Learn from the Medical Profession’s Shift from a Professional to a Corporate Paradigm,” 70 Fordham Law Review 775 (2001)
• “Testimony for Sale: The Law and Ethics of Snitches and Experts,” 28 Pepperdine Law Review 1 (2000)
• “Navigating the Insurance Triangle,” (chapter in Litigation Ethics, ABA 2000)
• “Community Justice, Equal Justice and Jury Nullification,” (chapter in To Promote the General Welfare, Lexington Books, 1999)
• “The Dangerous Patient Exception to the Psychotherapist-Patient Privilege: The Tarasoff Duty and the Jaffee Footnote,” 74 Washington Law Review 33 (1999)
• “Taking the Entity Theory Seriously: Lawyer Liability for Failure to Prevent Harm to Organizational Clients Through Disclosure of Constituent Wrongdoing,” 11 Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 597 (1998)
• “The Communitarian Function of the Criminal Jury Trial and the Rights of the Accused,” 74 Nebraska Law Review 804 (1995)
• Co-Editor, Federal Criminal Litigation: A Practical and Strategic Guide to Key Issues, (ABA 1994)
• Note, “Occupational Health Risks and the Worker's Right to Know,” 90 Yale Law Journal 1792 (1981)

Presentations

• US AID Conference on Experiential Education in China, “Reflections on the Summer 2007 Workshop on Teaching Advocacy,” Sacramento, California (January 2008)
• 2007 Conference of the United States District Court for the District of California, Fish Camp, California, “Attorney/Client Privilege: Erosion of an Absolute?” and “Attorney/Client Privilege: Crime Fraud Exception” (October 2007)
• Director, Workshop on Teaching Advocacy for Chinese Law Professors, Guangzhou, China (August 2007)
• Sacramento County Bar Association Appellate Section, Sacramento, California, “Teaching Appellate Advocacy: Tips and Guidelines on Being An Effective Appellate Mentor” (April 2007)
• Milton L. Schwartz American Inn of Court, Davis, California, “Military Commissions Act of 2006” (November 2006)
• University of the Pacific McGeorge Law School International Law Society, Sacramento, California, “A Discussion of Prisoner Rights During the War on Terror under International and U.S. Law” (April 2006)
• University of the Pacific Alumni MCLE Program, Sacramento and Long Beach, California, “Blowing the Whistle and Loyal Disclosure After Enron and After Sarbanes Oxley,” (January 2006)
• Morrison & Foerster MCLE Program, Palo Alto and San Francisco, California, “Ethics for In-House Counsel,” (January 2006)
• Guest lecturer at "Legal Training on Criminal Defense Before the Upcoming Khmer Rouge Tribunal," sponsored by Documentation Center of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (July 2005)
• Los Angeles Terrorism and Early Warning Group conference on "Terrorism, Global Security and the Law, " presentation as panelist on topic of "Rendition, Detention and Interrogation of Terrorist Suspects," Santa Monica, California (June 2005)
• World Affairs Council of Northern California, panel presentation "Guantanamo to California: An Insider's Status Report on Civil Liberties and the War on Terror" in San Francisco, California (June 2005)
• Faculty Member, ALI–ABA Program, Wailea, Maui, Hawaii, “Civil Practice and Litigation Techniques in Federal and State Courts” (March 2005)
• International Law Weekend West, American Branch of the International Law Association, Whittier Law School, Costa Mesa, California, panel presentation “Torture and War” (February 2005)
• Association of American Law Schools, panel presentation “The Roles of Lawyers and the War on Terror,” San Francisco, California (January 2005)
• “National Security, Executive Power and the Law: A Debate between Professors John Yoo and George Harris,” sponsored by Federalist Society and American Constitution Society, Stanford Law School (October 2004)
• Presentation on Lindh case to Human Rights and National Security Law Clinic, Stanford Law School (October 2004)
• Lex Mundi Institute, “Law in Time of War: Lessons from the Lindh Case,” Monterey, California (August 2004)
• Northern District of California Judicial Conference, Santa Cruz, California, “Law in the State of Perpetual War: Secrecy, Security and Civil Liberties in the Age of Anti-Terrorism” (May 2004)
• “United States Policy in Guantanamo Bay,” panel presentation sponsored by Stanford International Human Rights Law Association, Stanford Law School (February 2004)
• Fordham Debate, University of Utah College of Law, “Civil Liberties and the Global Threat of Terrorism” (February 2003)
• International Law Weekend West, American Branch of the International Law Association, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, California, “Unlawful Combatants?” (February 2003)
• Mealey’s Bad Faith Conference, Pasadena, California, “Institutional Bad Faith and Other Bad Acts: Can You Get Them In?” (October 2001)
• ALI–ABA Program, San Francisco, California, “New Directions in Expert Testimony — Summary Judgment” (April 2001)
• Conference on Government Mining Attorneys, Salt Lake City, Utah, “Testimony for Sale: The Law and Ethics of Snitches and Experts” (October 2000)
• CLE Presentation, San Francisco, California, “Navigating the Insurance Triangle” (January 2000)
• CLE Presentation, Utah Bar, Salt Lake City Utah, “Testimony for Sale: The Law and Ethics of Snitches and Experts” (November 1999)
• CLE Presentation, Utah Bar Law Day, Hill Air Force Base, Ogden, Utah, “Blowing the Whistle and Loyal Disclosure: Am I My Corporate Client’s Keeper?” (April 1999)
• Communitarian Summit, Washington, D.C., “The Communitarian Function of the Criminal Jury Trial and Jury Nullification” (October 1997)
• Roundtable on Criminal Justice System, Intermountain Commercial Record (published July 1997)

Professional Service and Activities

• Utah State Bar Ethics Advisory Opinion Committee (1999 to 2002)
• Ethics Advisory Committee to Utah Judicial Council (1999 to 2002)
• Multidisciplinary Practice Committee of the Utah State Bar (1999–2000)
• Advisory Council to ABA Special Committee on Evaluation of Rules of Professional Conduct (“Ethics 2000 Committee”) (1998 to 2000)
• University of Utah Conflicts of Interest Advisory Committee (2000)
• Amicus Curiae at request and appointment of United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in United States v. Glass, 133 F.3d 1356 (10th Cir. 1998)
• Early Neutral Evaluator, United States District Court for the Northern District of California (2001 to present)
• Utah Dispute Resolution, mediator (1997–1999)
• California Bar Association (1983 to present)
• Utah Bar Association (1997 to present)