Sam Imperati

SAM IMPERATI, JD is the Executive Director of the Institute for Conflict Management, Inc. (ICM.) ICM is a North-West based, national provider of ADR services. Sam has been highly effective in resolving complex disputes, facilitating public policy issues, mediating multi-party cases, managing intense emotions, and training groups to help them navigate the intersection of logic and emotion. Sam appears in the 2006 through 2015 editions of The Best Lawyers in America for ADR. He also received the Lezak award for excellence in mediation from the Oregon Mediation Association (OMA) and the Oregon State Bar (OSB).

Sam has been an attorney for over thirty-five years, enjoys Martindale-Hubbell’s AV rating, and has been involved in approximately 3,000 disputes, some of which he started! His legal background includes plaintiff and defense work, management and labor, along with litigation and appeals. He was formerly Assistant Corporate Counsel with Nike, in private practice, and has handled litigation and mediated everything from “Admiralty to Zoning.” He has served as a Judge Pro Tem, as Chair of the Oregon State Bar Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Section, and as an Executive Committee member of the Portland Neighborhood Mediation Center Advisory Committee. He was on the OSB Ethics Committee, was Chair of the Multnomah Local Professional Responsibility Committee, and serves on OMA’s Standards and Practices Committee.

Sam has taught decision-making, negotiation, and leadership at Willamette’s MBA Program, and environmental dispute resolution at Lewis and Clark Law School. He has provided numerous interactive decision-making, mediator skills, advocacy, dispute resolution, and diversity trainings. He is also an engaging and informative keynote speaker, who has written four law review articles on mediation.

Sam graduated magna cum laude with a BA from the University of Santa Clara, and received his JD from the University of California at Davis, where he was a law review, volume editor. He co-authored two law review articles on environmental issues, was co-founder/editor of Environs, and was a judicial intern for the Ninth Circuit.