Haris studied maritime law in Southampton (LLM), where he was awarded the Newitt award for his dissertation, having first studied law in Athens (LLB). Upon graduation from Southampton in 1994, he joined Richards Butler (now Reed Smith) on a summer scholarship, going on to qualify as a solicitor in 1997. He became partner at Middleton Potts (now Hill Dickinson) in 2001 and he has been partner at Stephenson Harwood since 2008.
In the course of his 27-year career in London, he has acted for clients from all over the world. Dispute resolution represents the largest part of his practice and he has acted in over 300 arbitrations, High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court and multi-jurisdictional cases ranging from modest demurrage claims to mine off-take, shipbuilding and oil and gas disputes worth hundreds of millions. His reported Court cases include the Johnny K, Trafigura v Kookmin Bank, the Sabrewing, the Northgate, the Port Russel, U&M v Konkola Copper Mines, CH Offshore v PDVSA Petroleo and Petrosaudi Oil Services v Novo Banco et al. While he has been described as a "solid and tenacious litigator" (Chambers UK 2007) and “a supreme tactician” (Chambers UK 2020), he is also involved in non-contentious work, structuring transactions and drafting standard terms. More recently, he has been actively involved in maritime decarbonisation projects, served on the drafting committee of, and is legal advisor to, the Sea Cargo Charter.
He has served on the editorial board of Shipping and Transport Law Journal, is member of the Council of the London Shipping Law Centre, has published and lectured extensively worldwide including for BIMCO, the IMO and universities.
Haris heads Stephenson Harwood’s commodities practice, which has consistently been recognised as a First Tier team by The Legal 500. He has also recently been inducted to the Legal 500 Hall of fame as a result of his continued recognition by the directory.