Orrin L. Harrison III represents clients in complex business litigation, usually involving energy, securities, antitrust, and director and officer issues. In 2009, for the fourth year in a row, Mr. Harrison received the prestigious first-tier ranking as a securities litigator from Chambers USA. During his more than 30 years of practice, Mr. Harrison has represented utility companies, accounting and investment banking firms, and oil and gas companies. He has been the principal outside national litigation counsel for a major Texas utility, an international oil and gas company and a large mutual fund. He has appeared pro hac vice in the trial courts of New York, California, Florida, Delaware, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Ohio and Wyoming and has argued appeals before the Supreme Courts of Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming and Alabama and in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 5th and 11th Circuits.
Mr. Harrison joined Akin Gump as a partner in 2003. Prior to joining Akin Gump, he was a partner at another large national law firm in its Dallas office. He was a member of that firm’s practice management committee and the section head of the litigation practice in its Dallas office.
Mr. Harrison received his B.A. cum laude in political science in 1971 from the University of the South and his J.D. with honors in 1974 from the Southern Methodist University School of Law, where he was research editor of the Journal of Air Law and Commerce and a member of Order of the Coif and Order of the Barristers. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; all Texas federal district courts; and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 5th, 10th and 11th Circuits.
Mr. Harrison is a former president of the Dallas Bar Association (1992) and the Dallas Chapter of American Board of Trial Advocates (1990). He is a member of the International Society of Barristers. He is a former director of the State Bar of Texas (1993-1996), during which time he was awarded a Certificate of Merit and the outstanding third-year director award, and is a former trustee of the Dallas Bar Foundation. He is a life fellow of the Dallas Bar Foundation, the Southwestern Legal Foundation, the Texas Bar Foundation and the American Bar Foundation. From 2003-2009 he served on the State Bar Commission on Lawyer Discipline, which oversees the lawyer grievance process in Texas, serving as its vice-chair from 2007-2009.
Mr. Harrison has been recognized as a leading lawyer in 2010 by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and in 2011 as a Texas “Super Lawyer” in the area of securities litigation.
In civic affairs, Mr. Harrison was recognized as a 2007 recipient of the Torch of Conscience Award by the American Jewish Congress Southwest Region. In addition, Mr. Harrison serves on the board of directors of United Way of Greater Dallas and the North Texas Business for Culture and the Arts and is a former board member of the Dallas County Heritage Society (Old City Park). He co-chairs the de Tocqueville division of the Dallas United Way campaign cabinet. He was in the Leadership Dallas class of 1988. Mr. Harrison is a frequent lecturer for the CLE programs at the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University on the topics of arbitration, securities regulation, accounting litigation and corporate investigations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.