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Home > Lawyers
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Harry M. Reasoner
Harry M. Reasoner
Experience | Education | Recognition | Activities | Publications
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Biography
Harry practices primarily in complex civil litigation. He has served as lead trial counsel in litigation and arbitration involving antitrust, securities, insurance, contract, and tort claims in the billions of dollars. He has also handled the appeals of multimillion dollar verdicts in matters not originally tried by the firm, including antitrust, insurance, oil and gas, RICO, securities law, utility regulation, and UCC issues. In recent years, he has represented major oil companies, investment bankers, chemical companies, pipeline companies, television networks, and computer companies.
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Representative Experience
Trials
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- Lead trial attorney for V&E team that represented, on a contingent fee antitrust case, the ETSI Pipeline Project, a joint venture attempting to build a coal slurry pipeline, in a suit brought against various western railroads. The case resulted in a jury verdict and subsequent judgment of over $1 billion in damages against the nonsettling defendant
- Obtained $120 million judgment for plaintiff in Delaware shareholder litigation
- Obtained take-nothing jury verdict for newspaper in a $100 million antitrust suit brought by a failing newspaper-competitor shortly before it went out of business
Appeals
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- Obtained decertification in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit of a nationwide RICO class against the nation's workman's compensation insurers
- Obtained reversal and rendition of an $80 million plaintiff's verdict against a major oil company in an oil and gas case
- Obtained reversal of orders (1) excluding $2 billion in nuclear power plant construction costs and (2) retroactively lowering rates and denying tens of millions of dollars in tax benefits on behalf of our major public utilities in four separate cases before the Supreme Court of Texas
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Education and Professional Background
- The University of Texas Law School, J.D. first in class, 1962 (Editor, Texas Law Review; Chancellors; Order of the Coif)
- Rice University, B.A. Philosophy summa cum laude, 1960 (Phi Beta Kappa; Delta Phi Alpha)
- University of London, Rotary Foundation Fellow studying international law and comparative law of competition and monopoly, 1962 - 1963
- Judicial clerk to The Honorable Charles E. Clark, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 1963 - 1964
- Vinson & Elkins L.L.P., Houston, 1964; partner since 1970; managing partner, 1992 - 2001
- Admitted to practice: Texas, 1962; District of Columbia, 1974; New York, 1980
Professional Recognition
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- Named to the "Appellate Hot List," National Law Journal, 2009
- Euromoney's Benchmark Litigation - Local Litigation Star, 2009
- Profiled in Texas Super Lawyers, "Come, Let Us Reasoner Together," October 2008
Activities and Affiliations
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- Appointed: Texas Access to Justice Commission, Supreme Court of Texas
- Fellow: American College of Trial Lawyers; International Academy of Trial Lawyers; International Society of Barristers; American Law Institute; American Board of Trial Advocates; American, Texas, and Houston Bar Foundations
- Chaired: District Court Advisory Group for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas under the Civil Justice Reform Act; Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board; American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law
Publications and Presentations
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- Procedure: The Handmaid of Justice (West, 1965) (edited with Charles Alan Wright)
- American Economic Policy in the 1980s (The University of Chicago Press, 1994) (contributor on antitrust policy)
- Federal Civil Procedure Before Trial: Fifth Circuit Practice Guide (Lawyers Cooperative Publishing and the American Inns of Court, 1996) (coeditor)
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Full Biography
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First City Tower
1001 Fannin Street
Suite 2500
Houston, TX 77002-6760
Tel +1.713.758.2358
Fax +1.713.615.5173
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