Rich served as the first Federal Judicial Law Clerk to Judge William S. Sessions, Chief Judge, U. S. District Court for the Western District of Texas and Director of the F.B.I., and as a Trial Attorney in the Civil Division of the U. S. Department of Justice. He is certified by the Washington Mediation Association in the following areas of mediation: Business/Commercial, Construction, Environmental, International, Organizational, and Public Policy. Rich has practiced law for more than 25 years, including complex civil litigation cases.
Rich is a member of the Washington State Bar Association, and holds professional certifications in Win Win Technology ™, Creative Strategic Thinking, Project Alignment ™, an innovative business team building process, Project ReAlignment ™, an innovative business conflict resolution process, and Slate Tracker ™, an innovative project executive risk assessment and mitigation process. Rich was recently awarded a contract by the State of Oregon to provide Mediation, Large Group Facilitation, and Public Policy Facilitation services to Oregon state government agencies.
Rich is a published author. One of his three lead articles in law journals, “The Seventh Amendment and the Common Law: No Magic in Numbers,” 56 F.R.D. 507 (1973) was used by the U. S. Supreme Court as the bases of its decision in Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S. 149 (1973), which guarantees the right to trial by jury of six persons in civil cases. He has co authored two books on innovative conflict resolution, Win Win Power: Transforming Conflict and George and the Jeanie: an Adventure in Conflict Disappearance, available on Amazon.com.
Another book has just been published and is available in this website as an E-Book. It is entitled Conflict to Partnership: How to Transform Most Any Conflict into Partnership and Produce Sustainable, Measurable Results On Time/On Budget! The book includes the story of Rich’s journey from litigator to win win facilitator and presents the entire Conflict to Partnership program, including specific examples of how Rich has applied the skills to help transform conflict into partnership.
Rich is an educator. He has taught team building, communications, and conflict resolution skills to private sector and public sector personnel for 18 years. He developed a Continuing Legal Education program, “Ethics in Mediation,” which was offered through the Washington State Bar Association. Rich developed the Transforming Mideast Conflict project, www.conflict2healing.com, an interdisciplinary on line education program to teach innovative listening, dialogue, conflict resolution processes, and promote interfaith understanding.
Rich has initiated two public workshops at Seattle’s Town Hall in which citizens learned and applied listening and dialogue skills to public policy issues. The first, An Interfaith Dialogue on the Middle East Peace Process, took place in May, 2002 and included The Compassionate Listening Organization, Conversation Café, participation by Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Congressman Jim McDermott, 25 trained mediators/facilitators, and 200 participants. The second, a Town Hall forum on media coverage of the war in Iraq took place in May, 2003, and was entitled “War in Iraq: Fair, Balanced, and Accurate Coverage?” It was cosponsored by the Washington News Council and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Rich lives in the Queen Anne area of Seattle and enjoys working out, Swing dancing, and the Lindy Hop.
Judge William S. Sessions
Distinguished Public Servant and Great American
and
Walid B. Farhoud
Wise Counselor and Good Friend
The Conflict to Partnership Education Program is also dedicated to you, the student. May you enjoy learning and applying the skills of Active Listening, Dialogue, Win Win Conflict Replacement, and the development, implementation, and monitoring of successful solutions. May you enhance the effectiveness of these skills based on your own experience and develop new ones, thereby contributing to the evolution of human consciousness.
Harvey Richmond Fisher, J.D.
Seattle, Washington
January 11, 2012