Keith J. Harrison
Our Leadership at Crowell mean what they say and they take action.
Keith J. Harrison
This Is My Story.
I was born at an army base just outside of Stuttgart, Germany.
My dad was a combat veteran of World War II and the Korean War, and a battalion commander in the Vietnam War. He was a member of the first cadre of African American Army officers, soldiers that Colin Powell viewed as his mentors—strong Black men who had fought through segregation in the military. I was lucky to have true American heroes as my role models.
I was the first African American male partner at the firm. With Crowell, it felt right from the start.
Meet Keith
Keith J. Harrison is a partner and co-chair of Crowell & Moring’s Litigation Group in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. A seasoned trial litigator and former New York City prosecutor, he is the co-chair of the firm’s Public Service Practice Group and a member of the firm’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee.
When my dad was assigned to the Pentagon we moved to Virginia in 1964. Unfortunately, the public schools were not officially desegregated until 1965. I’d love to say it was easy but it wasn’t. At times it was a bit rough.
A child of the civil rights era, I was driven to go to law school. I lived segregation first-hand, knew about Thurgood Marshall and I watched the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. That’s what made me want to study the law and pursue justice. I got into UVA Law but had no idea what private lawyers actually did. The first lawyer I met was actually my first law professor.
Finding My Strengths
After law school, despite receiving a Big Law firm offer, I worried doing legal research and writing memos wouldn’t be interesting enough. A law school friend recommended the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which actually dovetailed with my goal to be involved in public service. At that time there weren’t many Black NYC prosecutors. My first job was with the Manhattan DA’s office and I loved “representing the People of the State of New York” and doing the “Law & Order” thing. I was literally in court every day, tried a ton of cases and tried to do justice. I learned how to try a case the right way, exercise sound judgement, and to do the right thing for the right reasons, which wasn’t always the easy thing. The DA’s office really helped me identify and hone my strengths
Then I went to work for a large now-defunct DC law firm, as a white-collar lawyer on teams representing Senator McCain in the Keating Five investigation and Major League Baseball on the Pete Rose case. After several other career stops, I co-founded a law firm: King, Pagano and Harrison. We began with four lawyers and grew into a 30-lawyer minority-owned litigation boutique with offices in DC and New York. While we considered many merger offers over the years, the cultural fit was never quite right. With Crowell it felt right from the start, the merger established our New York office, and, as I later found out, I was the first African American male partner at the firm. Since joining the firm, I’ve been a co-founder of the firm’s Trial Excellence Academy, as well as our Racial Justice Pro Bono Task Force, which has been a vehicle for taking pro bono action in the areas of voting rights, civil rights, police brutality, mass incarceration, and housing rights in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the resulting civil unrest. We are actively pursuing justice on a national scale. This too reflects Crowell’s commitment and core values.
Showing the Way
At Crowell diversity is always a top-of-mind priority, something we think about routinely. When I first joined the firm, I became a member of the Diversity Committee along with another lawyer who came aboard at about the same time. Today he’s the chairman of the firm, which to me is more proof Crowell has always been ahead of the diversity curve. Twenty years ago, few law firms were thinking about diversity in a real way and taking action but we already had an attorney exclusively focused on diversity. And our Chairman continues to be active on the Diversity Committee to this day and he is emblematic of our firm’s long-term commitment to DEI I can guarantee you that no other Big Law chairman has been on that firm’s DEI committee for 16 years straight.
We’ve done a very good job in recruiting a large group of talented diverse lawyers, and that is the result of many, many years of effort, nurturing and sponsorship. We’ve set some very aggressive goals for increasing our diversity, like increasing the number of African American partners by 100 percent. When we set a goal, we meet it. Increasing the percentage of women partners and diverse partners is also a primary focus, and we have many outstanding diverse lawyers poised to make the next step to partner.
Crowell is the best place in the nation a diverse lawyer can build their practice, and it’s because of our culture of teaming and helping each other succeed. Today there’s a lot more competition for talented diverse lawyers. That’s going to be a challenge for many firms, but it’s a challenge that I know Crowell can win.