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William J. Harbison, Ward Dewitt, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Those close to him knew Bill Harbison for much more than the great legal scholar that he was. For almost twenty years I had the good fortune to practice law with him and was privileged to be his friend for over forty years. He was, as everyone knows, an outstanding lawyer and judge, but perhaps many do not know the non-legal side of Bill Harbison. In no particular order, Bill was a churchman, a sports enthusiast, a gardener, a historian, a fisherman, a lover of literature, and above all a devoted family man. For many years he was active at …

William J. Harbison, Thomas J. Sherrard, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

Bill joined Sherrard & Roe after his retirement from the Tennessee Supreme Court in the spring of 1990. Although I didn't appreciate it fully at the time, his arrival proved to be a defining event for our firm. To a group of practitioners in a growing law practice still trying to identify clearly our professional objectives and philosophy of practice, Justice Harbison served as an immediate and constant exemplar of those qualities and attributes that we most admired and that we knew should be perpetuated in our firm.

Of course, we all knew before Bill Harbison joined our firm that …