Casner & Edwards announces that former Massachusetts Attorney General and Senior Counsel, Scott Harshbarger, was selected as a Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly 2024 “Hall of Fame” honoree. In its second year, the Hall of Fame recognizes top Massachusetts lawyers who have been practicing for more than 30 years and demonstrated impressive career accomplishments, contributions to the bar, and a consistent effort to improve the accessibility and quality of justice in the Commonwealth. Harshbarger and fellow honorees will be celebrated at a reception in Boston on September 17.
At Casner, Harshbarger provides strategic counsel for business ethics, corporate investigations and defense, compliance and risk management, corporate and governance, and government regulation. His distinguished career includes positions in major public offices, nonprofit executive management, private legal counsel, and numerous board directorships.
Prior to private practice, Harshbarger had a long and successful public service career as a public defender, civil rights attorney, and Middlesex District Attorney (1982-1990), and was recognized as a national leader during his two terms as Massachusetts Attorney General (1991-1999).
While serving as Massachusetts Attorney General, Harshbarger was elected President of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), and was also recognized for being one of the first AGs to sue the tobacco manufacturers on behalf of children and public health. He is also recognized for his pioneering use of Chapter 93A to promulgate handgun safety regulations. Other major consumer and public protection initiatives during his term include the Hospital and HMO Community Benefit Guidelines, the Elder and Disability Protection Projects, and the SCORE Conflict Resolution and Safe Neighborhood Initiatives against urban and family violence, white collar crime, public corruption, and insurance and health care fraud.
Harshbarger was elected President of the Massachusetts Association of District Attorneys and was awarded the Livingston Hall Award by the American Bar Association for his outstanding work in Juvenile Justice. He also served as an adjunct professor, teaching Professional Responsibility in the Clinical program at Boston University Law School from 1978-1994.
In the course of his private sector career since 1998, Harshbarger has served as President/CEO of Common Cause National, Chair of the Pro Bono Initiative at the Proskauer law firm, Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, Chair of the Board of Community Resources for Justice and the Advisory Board of the Rappaport Center for Law and Policy at Boston College Law School, and chaired the Corrections Reform Commission (2004-2005) for Governor Mitt Romney and The Task Force on Hiring and Promotion in the Judicial Branch for the SJC (2011-2012), as well as the Trial Court Management Advisory board. In 2019, he co-founded and now chairs the board of Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD.org).
Harshbarger remains involved in the Massachusetts legal community by regularly speaking to state and national business groups, industry and legal associations and college audiences and also appears in the national media and on New England television as a commentator and news analyst.
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reports decisions issued by all the state and federal courts in Massachusetts, as well as changes to court rules, verdict and settlement reports, bar-discipline notices, and all other news vital to attorneys in the commonwealth. It also covers hundreds of rulings from state and federal trial courts in Massachusetts.
