Who is Robert L Harris

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Robert L. Harris, Esq.

Robert L. Harris is a retired Vice President of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). A 1963 graduate of Merritt College and a 1965 graduate of San Francisco State University, he was inducted into S.F. State University’s Hall of Fame in 2007.  In 1972, he received his Juris Doctor degree from the University Of California School Of Law at Berkeley where he was a member of the California Law Review.

After graduating from law school, he joined the legal staff of PG&E and practiced law there for seventeen (17) years, handling a variety of legal matters before transitioning to the business side of the company in 1989—and retired after 34 years with the company.  In 1985, he became the first and only lawyer in PG&E’s history to argue and win a case for it in the United States Supreme Court.  In so doing, he became the first lawyer in the nation to convince the Supreme Court that a corporation, like an individual, has negative First Amendment rights. In 2022, PG&E named its DEiversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Award in his honor.

A former President of the Charles Houston Bar Association (and member of its Hall of Fame), he served in 1979-1980 as the 37th President of the National Bar Association (NBA), the first ever from the West Coast. As President of the NBA, he convened the first National Conference on Black on Black Crime in 1980.  One of the founders of the California Association of Black Lawyers (CABL) in 1977, he presided at its first meeting; has received its highest honor (the Loren Miller Award) and its Life Time Achievement Award.Moreover, he drafted California Code of Civil Procedure 527.7 on behalf of CABL. The “History Makers” in 2006 selected him as a history maker.  In 2013 he was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame and in 2016 into the CABL Hall of Fame.He was the 27th Grand Polemarch (national president) of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity (1991-1995) and the 43rd Grand Sire Archon (National President; 2008-2010) of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity (the Boulé). A member of the 100 Black Men of the Bay Area, Harris received its highest honor, The Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

As a civil rights activist, he received the NAACP’s highest national legal honor, the “William Robert Ming Award”(1986). He has received the NBA’s highest honor, the “C. Francis Stradford Award” (1982) and the American Bar Association’s highest Pro Bono Service Award (1986).  Kappa Alpha Psi, in 2005, awarded him its highest honor, the “Laurel Wreath.”  Harris is the author of the recently published book, “Goodbye, Arkadelphia! Turning Obstacles into Opportunities.” He is married to Glenda F. Newell, M.D. and they have four children and six grandchildren.