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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
- 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
- Obtained in arbitration the dismissal of a $300 million preferential purchase rights claim against the chemicals subsidiary of a major holding company
- Defended CBS Inc., in a libel suit in El Paso. Obtained a jury finding that the 60 Minutes broadcast did not libel plaintiffs
- Obtained award of several hundred millions of dollars in an eight-month arbitration in the District of Columbia over allocation of responsibility for product defects between manufacturers
- Obtained summary judgment on antitrust claims and dismissal of telecommunications claims in a $600 million case brought by an ILEC against a telecommunications company
- Obtained a $70 million judgment for a leading financial institution against the United States for retroactive legislation improperly depriving it of tax benefits in savings and loan bail outs
Appeals
- 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
- Obtained affirmance in the Fifth Circuit of denial of a $500 million claim by oil and gas royalty owners
- Obtained reversal of a judgment where an insurance company was being held liable for bad faith for refusal to settle in the Supreme Court of Texas
- Obtained U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decision resulting in $30 million settlement for owner of an overriding coal royalty
- Successfully represented an insurer in the Fifth Circuit in enforcement of flood damage exclusions with regard to levee breaks during Hurricane Katrina
- Obtained affirmation by the Fifth Circuit of dismissal of a highly publicized case arising from the statutory rape of a 14-year old girl by a man she allegedly met on MySpace.com
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
- 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
- Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business in litigation: trial lawyers, 2007 - 2010
- The Best Lawyers in America® in commercial litigation, 2008 - 2011; antitrust law and bet-the-company litigation, 2008 - 2011; has been listed in Best Lawyers for 25 years
- The Lawdragon 500: 500 Leading Lawyers in America, 2008; Leading Plaintiff Lawyers, 2007; Leading Litigators, 2006
- Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers in general commercial litigation, 2004 - 2007
- Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers in antitrust, general commercial litigation, and energy litigation, 2008 - 2010
- The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers in commercial litigation, 2008 - 2009; in competition law, 2008 - 2009
- Recognized in leading trial lawyers, Legal 500 U.S., 2010
- Who's Who Legal: Texas in commercial litigation and competition law, 2008
- Legal Media Group's (Euromoney's) Guide to the World's Leading Lawyers - Best of the Best USA in litigation, 2006 and 2008
- PLC Which lawyer? Yearbook 2007 as a leading individual in Dispute Resolution
- "Top 10 Texas Super Lawyer" and "Top 100 Houston Region Super Lawyer," Texas Monthly, 2008
- "Texas Super Lawyer," Texas Monthly, 2008 - 2009
- Recipient of the “Lifetime of Excellence in Advocacy Award” in 2004 by the Texas Association of Civil and Appellate Specialists
- Recipient of the “American Inns of Court Professionalism Award” for the Fifth Circuit, 2004
Activities and Affiliations
- 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
- Served: Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee; Supreme Court of Texas Judicial Campaign Finance Study Committee; Texas Supreme Court Task Force on Civil Litigation
- Trustee: University of Texas Law School Foundation; The Center for American and International Law, Trustee Emeritus (Chair of Institute for Litigation Studies); U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society
Publications and Presentations
- 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)
- "Ethical Issues in Commercial Cases" Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (Robert L. Haig ed.) (West Group and ABA 1998) (contributor with Edward A. Carr)
- "Conflicts of Interest," Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel (Robert L. Haig ed.) (West Group and ACCA 2000) (contributor with Edward A. Carr)
- Author and presenter of numerous legal articles and presentations
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