ASSOCIATE | NEW YORK
Ishmail A. Harris, an Associate at BurgherGray LLP, advises clients on corporate governance, fund formation, securities, and commercial transactions. His practice draws on experience across private practice, in-house public-sector legal leadership, and financial services compliance, allowing him to counsel clients on both transactional execution and regulatory risk.
As a corporate associate, Ishmail counseled public companies on corporate governance and securities law, including stock exchange compliance. He drafted, reviewed, and filed periodic and current reports, including Form 10-Ks, 10-Qs, 8-Ks, S-3s, Section 16 filings, and proxy statements, and prepared board and committee materials, minutes, resolutions, and actions by written consent. He also drafted and negotiated a broad range of commercial agreements, including stock purchase agreements, license agreements, employment and non-compete agreements, private placement memoranda, executive compensation contracts, vendor and service agreements, and joint venture and partnership agreements.
Ishmail most recently served as Director of Legal Affairs for Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, where he led legal strategy for an organization of roughly 1,000 employees, negotiated complex agreements, and acted as the department’s principal liaison to City Council and the City Law Department. He developed legal frameworks for community programs and expanded green-space access aligned with Philadelphia’s urban development goals. Earlier, as an anti-money laundering compliance associate at JPMorgan Chase, he applied the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act to evaluate internal controls and drafted Suspicious Activity Reports for submission to FinCEN.
Ishmail holds a J.D. with a business law concentration from the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, where he was a Charles Widger ’73 Leadership Scholar and served as Sub-Regional Director for the Black Law Students Association of the Mid-Atlantic Region. He received his B.S. in Business Administration, magna cum laude, from North Carolina Wesleyan University. He is admitted to practice in New York and Pennsylvania.
