Born in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1939. I grew up under Jim Crow laws and segregation. I was the youngest of 10 children and my parents immigrated to the US before WWI. My father came from Damascus, Syria, and my mother was from Lublin, Poland. Our lives centered around our family and synagogue. We were looked down upon by the dominant Christian community. I experienced hostility toward me from neighborhood boys for no other reason that I was Jewish. My 4 older brothers were all in WW II when I was growing up and fortunately they all returned safely. I grew up with my 4 older sisters who greatly influenced my life.

As a result of the holocaust, I had an intense interest in the new State of Israel. I went to summer camps preparing for a journey to Israel upon my graduation from high school. In 1957 I went with a group of 12 students to study and work for a year in Israel. I learned history, political science, geography, anthropology, archeology, and Hebrew. I also worked on a Moshav where I learned to milk cows, plow the field with a mule, and plant and harvest crops. I worked on 3 kibbutzim - one in northern Israel where I was a shepherd, another on the Sea of Galilee where I was a commercial fisherman at night, and in the Negev, where I worked in cotton fields.

Upon return to Ft. Worth in 1962, I attended Texas Christian University on a full scholarship. It was a great period of my life devoted to academic studies with great professors. I graduated with high honors and majored in Philosophy with a minor in History and English.

On a lark, I applied to Harvard Law School and by luck I was accepted in 1962. While at Harvard I got a chance to work with Henry Kissinger and met a number of Soviets at the first Nuclear Non-Proliferation talks as well as American Academics.

After graduating from law school, I got my first job with a Beverly Hills law firm. From there, I became in-house counsel for a hospital company. I then started my own law firm in 1971 and continued to practice until I became a full time mediator in 2007. My practice of law over the past 48 years has been wide-ranging, including probate and estate planning, real estate, personal injury, family law, business and corporations. This has been the basis of my mediation practice.

I started my training as a mediator in 1996 at Pepperdine Law School and have mediated over 1000 cases since then. I joined a distinguished panel of mediators in 2007 with ADR Services, Inc. in Century City. To advance my skills and knowledge as a mediator, I went to Arizona State to be trained and certified by Dr. Robert Cialdini to present his Principles of Persuasion workshop based on his six scientific principles of influence.

I have been a regular lecturer on negotiations and mediation at the USC Marshall School of Business for MBA students. I also lecture to lawyers on the MCLE subject of Elimination of Bias from a cognitive and social psychology perspective, using www.implicit.harvard.edu as a basis of my program. I am married to Sandy who is a travel agent and we have two adult children -- my son, who lives with his wife and 4 year old daughter in Madrid, Spain, and my daughter who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and 10 year old daughter.

I am married to Sandra who is a travel agent. In the 44 years of our marriage, we have had the good fortune to travel to over 90 countries around the world, including two remarkable safaris, one in Kenya and Tanzania and a recent trip to So. Africa, Zambia and Botswana. Each of our travels has been an enriching experience affording us the opportunity to meet people from many different cultures that have enriched our lives.

Participation in Coursera online classes such as Scott Plous's Social Psychology; Mitch Duneier's Introduction to Social Science; and Dan Ariely's Introduction to Irrational Behavior has added much to my knowledge base and enriched my understanding in helping people resolve conflict through mediation. And having the opportunity to discuss important issues in social psychology with participants from around the world has also expanded my appreciation for people with many different perspectives. Many thanks to Professor Plous, his staff and to all participants. I have also attended conferences on neuroscience with some of the leading researchers such as Antonio Damasio and Paul Zak.