Mike Blechman

Board Member, Chair Emeritus

Mike went to Harvard College (‘62) and Harvard Law School (‘66) and studied in between at the Freie Universität Berlin on a Fulbright Fellowship. He spent his legal career at Kaye Scholer LLP, where he served on the Executive Committee, chaired the Antitrust Department and established the firm’s German Office. He is presently an independent arbitrator and mediator. He is also an author, having written various pieces for the Wall Street Journal, The Forward and the ABA’s Experience Magazine.

He has taught arbitration at Fordham Law School and as a guest professor in Russia and Hungary. He began his work on shared society issues as a member of the then Committee on Arab Citizens of Israel of UJA-Federation of NYC. He also spent several weeks in Ramallah and Jerusalem negotiating the foundation documents for the Jerusalem Arbitration Center, a neutral forum established to adjudicate commercial disputes between Israeli and Palestinian businesses. He served for a number of years on the board of The Abraham Fund Initiatives and then followed Mohammad when he left TAFI for Givat Haviva.