Maurice Harmon

Maurice Harmon, Attorney at Law, is the fourth oldest in a family of nine children. Maurice Harmon grew up on a farm in southern Michigan before moving to a small town 50 miles from the straits of Mackinaw, not far from the cabin where Ernest Hemmingway wrote during the summer. Maurice Harmon played varsity baseball and basketball during high school, while also playing trumpet in the band.

Maurice Harmon attended Michigan State University with a short stint as a full-time police officer near Detroit before law school. Following admission to the bar he began his legal career in the Mesa County, Colorado District Attorney’s office as a line prosecutor. Thereafter, Maurice opened his own law office in Grand Junction, largely dedicated to criminal law defense. After eight years of private practice Maurice Harmon left law and moved to New York City to pursue a career in professional photography.

In the beginning Maurice Harmon, Photographer assisted established photographers to learn the business. After three years of schlepping gear and fetching bagels and coffee for others, Maurice began working on his own. The following 13 years he shot assignments for various clients throughout the United States and overseas.

During this time, Photographer Maurice Harmon learned first-hand the importance of copyright ownership of the photographs he created on assignment and the necessity of clear licensing agreements defining the scope of the rights granted for use of his work. Maurice also developed contacts and friendships with some of the leading photographers in the nation. When he discovered, to his surprise and dismay, frequent use of his work beyond license limits, Maurice began to bring lawsuits for copyright infringement on his behalf. Often met with disdain and contempt when confronting infringers of his work, Maurice Harmon learned first-hand the heavy corporate response to anyone with the audacity to confront them for their illegality.

Even more astonishing, were the reactions of book publishers, who themselves created copyrighted works and vigorously prosecuted infringers of their content. Rather than express embarrassment and apologies for their unlawful conduct, most of them treated my pre-filing inquiries with hostility and denial. This personal experience cemented Maurice Harmon’s decision to return to law full time, specializing in helping photographers enforce their copyrights and ultimately creating, along with law partner Chris Seidman, Harmon Seidman Bruss & Kerr LLC. Read more about Maurice Harmon's case studies.