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Harrison J. Kaplan Partner

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Raleigh T +1 919 836 4001 F fax +1 919 836 4031
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A lobbyist at the North Carolina General Assembly for over 35 years, Harry is a senior advisor with McGuireWoods Consulting’s state government relations group and is a partner with McGuireWoods LLP. Through his extensive work in state government relations, Harry has been at the forefront on many crucial public policy issues, particularly in the areas of education and health care.

His role in shaping and influencing public policy was recognized in 2017, when Harry was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest honor that the Governor of North Carolina can bestow to persons who have a record of service to the State. In 2020, Harry received recognition as one of North Carolina’s top lobbyists from the North State Journal.

Since beginning his government relations and legal career in 1988, Harry has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential lobbyists in Raleigh.

Harry represents public and private companies, as well as associations and nonprofit organizations, on a range of issues including education, health care and health insurance, pharmacy, economic development and business expansion, procurement, and finance and tax. He has extensive experience representing clients at the legislature and before state agencies, boards and commissions, and local governments.

Prior to joining McGuireWoods, Harry ran his own legal and lobbying practice for more than a decade and also served as director of government relations and counsel for the North Carolina Region of Kaiser Permanente.

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McGuireWoods Consulting LLC (“MWC”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the McGuireWoods LLP law firm. From time to time, various McGuireWoods lawyers provide non-legal services to MWC clients, but MWC cannot provide legal services or advice. Therefore, any work MWC performs for a client does not give rise to an attorney-client relationship or privilege. Should you require legal services from McGuireWoods, as well as consulting services from MWC, you must engage the law firm separately.

Experience

  • Effectively lobbied on behalf of school/parental choice organizations to create and expand virtual public charter school options; provide public charter schools greater regulatory flexibility and streamline the public charter school approval and renewal processes; give parents more educational choices for their children; provide local public education authorities with the opportunity to purchase online and digital learning products and services directly from qualified vendors; and establish education savings accounts for children with special needs, who require educational options that traditional public schools may not be able to provide.
  • Led the lobbying team that passed landmark health care legislation integrating behavioral and physical health care benefits and services for North Carolina Medicaid patients and providing for the licensure and regulation of health plans that will provide these services via a Medicaid managed care transformation program in the state.
  • Secured funding for a program to educate and train medical assistants, working with North Carolina federally qualified community health centers.
  • Secured funding for a program that uses an interactive cinematic, evidence-based approach to teach students about the negative impacts of bullying and violence, risky driving, and alcohol and drugs, and in place, strives to teach students about entrepreneurship and healthy behaviors overall.
  • Lobbied successfully to update state insurance laws that will improve the financial stability of domestic insurance companies by providing them with greater, and timelier, access to capital.
  • Lobbied, pro bono, with North Carolina and national Jewish organizations to add North Carolina as the 22nd state to enact HB 161: Divestment from Companies that Boycott Israel. HB 161 ensures that the people and the government of the state do not unknowingly become a party to discriminatory business practices or boycotts against the State of Israel.
  • Along with McGuireWoods Consulting colleagues Jeff Barnhart and Johnny Tillett, received the 2021 Community Health Center Advocate Award from the NC Community Health Center Association.

    From the Award presentation:

    In the early stages of the pandemic community health centers across the country faced vast reductions in patient volume and revenue, as well as new and increased costs with keeping staff safe, adopting telehealth and overhauling care delivery operations.

    “As the state of North Carolina mulled over its response, the state’s health centers were fortunate to have seasoned advocates in our partners at McGuireWoods Consulting working on our behalf with legislators in the North Carolina General Assembly. Leveraging their trusted relationships, reputations and access to legislators, Johnny, Jeff and Harry ensured that North Carolina’s community health centers would secure financial support from the state legislature to respond to COVID-19,” said Mel Goodwin, Interim Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel with the North Carolina Community Health Center Association. “In addition, when lawmakers passed additional COVID-19 relief legislation, the MWC team worked with them to provide flexibility for allowable expenses, and to increase the total financial support to community health centers not once, but twice from $5M to nearly $12.5M.”

    These funds leant a helping hand to health centers in a time of need, providing them with resources to care for communities. NC community health centers have used these funds in a variety of ways to strengthen and maintain staff capacity, to procure personal protective equipment, renovate facilities, purchase technology to adopt telehealth, provide mobile units and offset costs of patient services to newly uninsured North Carolinians who lost their jobs during the pandemic.