Rachel Viscomi joins the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program at Harvard Law School

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Sept. 4, 2013 - PRLog -- The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Rachel Viscomi ’01 as its new Assistant Director, beginning in September 3, 2013.

In addition to helping expand the scope and vision of HNMCP, Viscomi will also serve as Clinical Instructor, supervising current and recruiting new clinical projects.

“I am just delighted that we have persuaded Rachel to join our team. Her incredible skills as a teacher, her boundless energy and creativity, and her deep experience working on negotiation and conflict management issues in the real world will make her a tremendous asset to our programs, our students, and Harvard Law School,” said Prof. Robert Bordone, Founding Director of HNMCP. “On a personal level, it is exciting for me to have a colleague with whom I have worked in various capacities since 1999 now join the HNMCP team full time.”

Before coming to HNMCP, Rachel Viscomi worked as a Principal in the Corporate Education Practice of Vantage Partners, a Boston-based consulting firm that helps clients achieve business results by transforming the way they negotiate and manage their key relationships. At Vantage, Rachel worked closely with Fortune 500 clients from a wide range of industries (energy, financial services, sales, pharmaceuticals, technology, and entertainment, among others) to design and deliver experiences that maximized learning transfer and business impact. Her clients have included Cisco Systems, WestJet, Warner Brothers, Disney, IBM, and Deloitte. She managed the firm’s largest client relationship, working closely with internal stakeholders to create and oversee a best-in-class Negotiation and Influence Curriculum. She has delivered conflict resolution sessions as part of UMass Boston’s Emerging Leaders Program, NALEO’s National Summit on the State of Latino Education, Amsterdam’s ADR Institute, and at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. She has taught with Prof. Bordone for many years in one of the Program on Negotiation’s summer programs, the Harvard Negotiation Institute, geared towards practitioners in the field.

Prior to joining Vantage, Ms. Viscomi practiced as a civil litigator with the law firm of Bingham McCutchen, LLP, where she assisted a wide variety of clients in resolving complex commercial disputes, including The New York Times Company, Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company, and MetLife Investment Services.

“I cannot imagine a more exciting opportunity. There’s no question that the work that Bob and HNMCP are doing is on the very cutting edge of the dispute resolution field and it is a delight to be joining such a vibrant and dynamic team,” notes Viscomi. “On a personal note, it is a great joy to return to HLS and to give back to the program that shaped my career.”

Rachel earned her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Columbia College, with departmental honors, in Italian. She studied in Italy at the Università di Bologna and the Università degli studi di Firenze, earning her Master of Arts in Italian from Middlebury College with highest honors, before receiving her JD from Harvard Law School in 2001.

The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program is the nation’s first legal clinic focusing on dispute systems design and conflict management. HNMCP was founded in 2006 by Professor Robert Bordone to take Harvard Law School students from pedagogy to practice in the fields of negotiation, dispute resolution, and conflict management.

HNMCP trains a new generation of lawyers with the skills—in negotiation, mediation, facilitated dialogue, stakeholder assessment, dispute systems evaluation and design, conflict analysis, and curriculum development—necessary to help their clients manage their negotiations and disputes efficiently and creatively.