Roger Fisher, R.I.P.
Roger Fisher, Harvard Law Professor and author of the best-selling book Getting to Yes, passed away at the end of August, and I have been struggling to put into words how I feel. Roger was my first mentor in academia, and it was he who inspired me to teach negotiation. I was his research assistant during my second and third years of law school (1990-1992); served as a teaching assistant for his Negotiation Workshop, as well as a class entitled Coping with International Conflict; and ended up co-authoring two books with him based on the class, the textbook Coping with International Conflict and the mass-market Beyond Machiavelli.
For those of us who knew him personally, he was an inspiration. I still remember the first time that I met him — as a second-year law student after I had been hired to be his RA by the previous RA and having not met him personally beforehand. He was almost a foot taller than me — this very imposing, properly dressed professor, who peered over his glasses and in a very refined East Coast accent pronounced: “So I understand that you are to be my research assistant.” “Yes,” I stammered, wondering how I would be able to get along with someone so daunting. In fact, that was the only and last time that I felt intimidated by him.
Roger was so welcoming, his smile so sincere, that even when you disagreed with him (as I did on occasion), you wanted to continue the conversation.