At that time, John Harris had been working in labor law for about 20 years, beginning with five years as trial counsel and chief trial counsel with the National Labor Relations Board, and continuing as in-house labor counsel for AT&T and chief trial counsel for two prominent St. Louis management labor law firms. He started his own firm in 1973, quickly building a strong practice with many clients the firm continues to represent today.
After returning from service in Vietnam, John Dowell began practice in 1969 with another prominent labor law firm in St. Louis. He was a pioneer in defending discrimination cases, representing United Parcel Service against numerous discrimination charges in the early 1970s. Ron Fisher joined John Dowell at that firm in 1970, after three years with a Chicago-based union.
In 1978, John Dowell and Ron Fisher decided to start their own practice, joining John Harris to form the Harris, Dowell & Fisher law firm in October 1978, with offices in the rapidly growing Chesterfield area of St. Louis County.
The new partners envisioned the firm as based not on delegating as much work as possible to less experienced attorneys, but on directly applying their experience and expertise to performing most of the client services and legal work themselves.
In 2013, we expanded our service to employers when J. Bradley Young joined our firm, adding Workers Compensation Defense to our employment law practice. National Employment law firms never handle workers compensation defense, and few workers compensation defense firms have any expertise in the area of labor and employment law. And yet, we have found that with the complexity of today's employment litigation, employers need attorneys with experience in ALL aspects of law, not merely one isolated area.
