Kendall W. Harrison

Meet Kendall

Kendall Harrison is a trial and appellate litigator who regularly handles a variety of business-related disputes, including insurance, reinsurance and class action matters. His national practice has taken him from California to New York and many points in-between. 

Though often engaged in battles outside the Badger state, Kendall is at home in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, where he began his legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable Barbara B. Crabb. Kendall has appeared in over 100 cases in the Western District and often partners with out-of-state firms to help them navigate the ins and outs of practice in this jurisdiction.

In recent years, Kendall tried cases before both of the district’s judges, resulting in a $14.5 million jury verdict for his Dutch client in a patent infringement case and a resounding victory for the Minnesota-based beneficiary of a $70 million charitable trust. Kendall was also part of a team of attorneys that successfully represented Anheuser-Busch in a false advertising case brought by MillerCoors arising out of Bud Light's Super Bowl ads.

Currently in the Western District, Kendall is representing:

• An energy company in a putative antitrust class action where the plantiffs are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages
• An international taste and nutrition company in a dispute with one of its business partners
• A global gaming company in a putative class action involving allegations that it mishandled the Wisconsin Lottery

Kendall chairs the firm's insurance team, which represents most of Wisconsin's domestic carriers in various capacities. Kendall has handled numerous commercial disputes, class actions and reinsurance arbitrations for these clients.

On the appellate level, Kendall has argued before the First Circuit, Seventh Circuit, Wisconsin Supreme Court, and Wisconsin Court of Appeals. At the onset of the pandemic, he participated in one of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s first Zoom oral arguments.

Kendall has been recognized repeatedly in The Best Lawyers in America and as a Wisconsin Super Lawyer. He is actively involved in the International Association of Defense Counsel and is the past chair of that organization’s Amicus Curiae and Appellate committees. Along with his wife, he coaches the Madison West High School mock trial team, which has finished second in the state for two years running.

Kendall helped to initiate Godfrey & Kahn’s pro bono policy. He actively participates in the Dane County Bar Association’s Delivery of Legal Services Committee and is the past president of the Friends of the Waisman Center, where he remains on the board.

Prior to joining Godfrey & Kahn, Kendall spent a year serving as counsel to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau, a small island nation in Micronesia. While there, Kendall also coached the Palauan national tennis team in the Micronesian Games (Micronesia’s Olympics). 

While attending the University of Wisconsin Law School, Kendall served as the Senior Articles Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review and was a member of Order of the Coif.