| Biography:
Scott Harshbarger is Senior Counsel to the Firm in the Boston office of Proskauer
Rose LLP, one of the nation's preeminent law firms, providing a full range of
legal services to major corporations and other clients nationally and internationally.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Mr. Harshbarger was also
a Rockefeller Fellow at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Mr. Harshbarger's
practice focuses on strategic counsel and litigation, corporate investigations
and defense, corporate and nonprofit governance and government regulation. His
distinguished career has included major public office, nonprofit executive management,
numerous board directorships and private legal counsel.
Mr. Harshbarger's lengthy record in public service as a public defender, civil
rights attorney, district attorney and Massachusetts Attorney General provides
him with the experience to offer strategic counsel and legal advice to CEOs,
general counsel, trustees, public officials and boards on such matters as fiduciary
responsibilities, governmental inquiries and regulation, fraud investigations,
compliance, ethics issues and crisis management.
During his two terms as Massachusetts Attorney General from 1991 to 1999, Mr.
Harshbarger was the first Attorney General in the nation to engage the health
care community in developing hospital and HMO benefit guidelines. In leading
Massachusetts' efforts against Big Tobacco, Mr. Harshbarger was among the first
AGs nationally to recover the costs of health care associated with tobacco use,
resulting in payments by the tobacco companies to the Commonwealth totaling
$300 million per year over the next 25 years. In private practice, Mr. Harshbarger
has advised many different health care organizations, interest groups and full
hospital systems on their governance practices, internal controls and regulatory
matters. His practice encompasses major national entities as well as smaller
nonprofit groups with local service bases.
During his tenure as Attorney General, Mr. Harshbarger was elected President
of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG). As the leading law
enforcement officer of Massachusetts, he led major initiatives against white
collar crime, public corruption, insurance and Medicaid fraud, environmental
abuses and high-tech crime. Mr. Harshbarger built the first Family and Community
Crimes Bureau, a department focused on family violence issues like elder and
child abuse prosecution and prevention, and his Conflict Resolution/Violence
Prevention Project (SCORE) earned a Ford Foundation Excellence in Government
Award. Mr. Harshbarger received national praise for his Safe Neighborhoods Initiative
to reduce urban crime and violence and sponsored unprecedented Brownfields legislation
to help stimulate economic growth in formerly depressed neighborhoods. In conjunction
with the Safe Neighborhoods Initiative, Mr. Harshbarger was the first Attorney
General to use consumer protection and safety regulations to combat handgun
availability.
Mr. Harshbarger served as President and CEO of Common Cause in Washington, DC,
the national non-profit citizen's lobby and government watchdog group founded
by John Gardner, from August, 1999 to November, 2002. His term marked a major
reform and renewal for the organization and thrust Common Cause into the public
interest mainstream. Common Cause led the coalition of national business and
public interest advocacy groups, including grassroots organizations. Mr. Harshbarger
helped organized to push passage of the "McCain-Feingold" campaign
finance reform bill in 2002, Mr. Harshbarger launched Common Cause's corporate
governance project and dramatically expanded the organization's national agenda
to include election reform and executive agency monitoring.
In 1998, the Democrat Party nominated Mr. Harshbarger for governor of Massachusetts.
He received 48 percent of the vote, losing by a narrow margin to an incumbent
governor. In 2003, Mr. Harshbarger was appointed by Governor Mitt Romney to
head the Governor's Commission on Corrections Reform, following the murder of
a defrocked priest, and their Report received national attention, as did the
Report on Public Pension Reform issued by the Blue Ribbon Commission he chaired
in 2004. During his tenure as District Attorney of Middlesex County, the largest
county in Massachusetts with a population greater than 13 individual states,
Mr. Harshbarger received national attention for his initiatives in public protection,
juvenile justice, child abuse, and law enforcement training, partnerships with
schools on drug and alcohol abuse and violence prevention and he received the
Livingston Hall Award from the American Bar Association. Prior to being District
Attorney Mr. Harshbarger also was the first General Counsel of the State Ethics
Commission, Chief of the Public Protection Bureau in the Attorney General's
office, and Deputy Chief Counsel for the Massachusetts Defenders Committee.
Mr. Harshbarger's public service continues with his chairmanship of Proskauer
Rose's national Pro Bono Initiative, membership on the Independent Sector Panel
of the Nonprofit Advisory Committee on Self Regulation and the Council on Foundations
Ethics Advisory Committee as well as the International Association of Chiefs
of Police/The Joyce Foundation Great Lakes Advisory Committee on Gun Violence
Reduction. Mr. Harshbarger currently serves on the Boards of Directors at Union
Theological Seminary, Chess-in-the-Schools in New York City, The Nonprofit Information
Network Association (NonProfit Quarterly Magazine) and the Ethics Resource Center
in Washington D.C. He is the independent chair of the Ethics and Audit Committee
of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), and chair of the Legal Defense
Advisory Group at the Epilepsy Foundation. Mr. Harshbarger previously served
on the boards of the Epilepsy Foundation, DC Vote, and the Justice Resource
Institute.
Mr. Harshbarger taught Professional Responsibility and Legal Ethics at Boston
University Law School for twenty years; and was a Visiting Professor (Government
Lawyer and Public Policy) at Harvard Law School for three years; and Hadley
Distinguished Professor at Northeastern Law School and College of Criminal Justice.
Mr. Harshbarger has also authored numerous law and related articles on topics
in the field of corporate and nonprofit governance, and regulatory strategies.
He regularly speaks to state and national business groups, industry associations
and legal, business and college audiences. Mr. Harshbarger appears often in
the national media and routinely appears on New England Cable News as a commentator.
Mr. Harshbarger was a Varsity football player and class Marshall at Harvard
College, and the Catcher and Manager of the Cambridge Mets fast-pitch softball
team for 30 years. His wife, Judy Stephenson, is a graduate of Cornell University
and Northeastern Law school. She was an Assistant District Attorney and a Professor
of Appellate Advocacy at Boston College Law. They have five children and five
grandchildren.
Together with Proskauer Rose's strong foundations in corporate finance, mergers
and acquisitions, real estate transactions, bankruptcy and reorganizations,
taxation, litigation, intellectual property, and labor and employment law, Mr.
Harshbarger's experience as a strategic, regulatory and crisis counselor/advisor,
as well as his corporate and nonprofit governance, litigation and independent
counsel practice, combined with his public, nonprofit and private advocacy networks,
and contacts add value to his and Proskauer's diverse and first-class client
base in many fields, industries and locations.
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