In Memoriam: Steven L. Harris

Steven L. Harris passed away on November 6. An ALI member since 1986, Harris served as Reporter for the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) Article 9 Drafting Committee with Charles W. Mooney Jr., which was enacted into law in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Insight into the success of this effort was shared in The ALI Reporter (Summer 2001) by William M. Burke, who served as ALI Chair to this project. A copy of this piece is available here.

In recognition of this important work, in 2002, Harris was honored by the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers for his work revising Article 9. He continued to participate in updating Article 9, including presenting proposed amendments at the 2018 ALI Annual Meeting.

Harris earned both his bachelor’s degree with high honors from the University of Chicago and law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. He was a professor of law emeritus at Chicago-Kent College of Law specializing in commercial and bankruptcy law, where he began full-time teaching in 1978. Before joining Chicago-Kent Law, Harris worked at Wayne State University Law School, where he met his wife Barbara, and prior to that at the University of Illinois College of Law. He was widely published in scholarly journals, including Cornell Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Virginia Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review. He was co-author of Cases, Problems, and Materials on Security Interests in Personal Property.

Harris is survived by his wife of 36 years, Barbara Bruno; his children, Jacob (Taylor) and Molly; his sister, Sunny (Douglas) Rome; his sisters- and brothers-in-law, Mary and Jeff Ehret and Donna Kase and Curt Paloumpis; and many nieces and nephews.

Read his obituary here.