Marshall Freeman Harris is senior policy advisor to Alston & Bird's Washington, DC office. A member of the Legislative and Public Policy Group, he advises clients on business development, international policy, and other issues, and specializes in assisting foreign governments with issues before the U.S. Administration and Congress.
Since 1999, Mr. Harris has served as foreign policy adviser to former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. Mr. Harris's background also includes eight years as a U.S. State Department official in the Executive Secretariat and European Bureau and as special assistant in the Office of Secretary of State James Baker. He also served the State Department in Britain, Bulgaria and Macedonia. During his tenure, he received Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards and shared in four Group Superior Honor Awards. He also won the American Foreign Service Association's Rifkin Award for creative dissent. More recently, Mr. Harris served as foreign policy adviser to Congressman Frank McCloskey; as co-founder of the Action Council for Peace in the Balkans and the Balkan Institute; as vice president and senior scholar at Freedom House; as partner in the Washington International Group; and as a principal in the law firm of Verner Liipfert Bernahard McPherson and Hand. He was an adviser to the Bosnian government during the Dayton peace talks, and to the Kosovar Albanian delegation at the Rambouillet peace talks. In 2004, he was named an honorary citizen of Kosova.