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Faculty

Alton B. Harris

Retired Partner at
Nixon Peabody

Admitted Jurisdictions

Illinois

Practice Areas

Biography

Al was a founding partner of a Chicago law firm that, having grown from five lawyers to 125 lawyers, merged into a much larger national law firm. Al served for many years as managing partner and then as a member of its Executive and Compensation Committees. In these roles, he had extensive experience mentoring and advising women in many career fields.

Over the course of his career, Al has grown increasingly concerned about the barriers and biases women face in gendered workplaces, characterized by masculine norms, values, and expectations. Al’s extensive research, astute observations, and pragmatic voice have made him a nationally recognized advocate for women’s career advancement.

Al focuses on the communication skills women need to advance in their chosen fields, despite the prevalence of negative gender stereotypes. A frequent lecturer and keynote speaker, Al speaks to women about what male colleagues expect from future leaders, offering creative ideas and useful techniques for women to be seen as talented leaders. Al also speaks to organizations about the negative effect that gender bias has on their organizations, providing practical steps to eliminate gender bias.

Al is author with his wife, Andie Kramer, of the book Breaking Through Bias: Communication Techniques for Women to Succeed at Work, which was named one of the best business books of 2016 by Women@Work and “a well-organized, well-thought-out call to action: by Publishers Weekly. Their second book, It’s Not You, It’s the Workplace: Women’s Conflict at Work at the Bias that Built It was released in August 2019. He is the coauthor over 175 articles and blog posts on promoting diversity and overcoming stereotypes and biases.

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2 Courses taught by Alton B. Harris

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