Jeff Kichaven is wired to give back. He was on the receiving end of some dedicated giving early on. It was an example his mother and father set.

He’s filled with gratitude for the sacrifices his middle-class parents made so that he could have an education that would take him places. In 1966, for example, his parents pooled everything they had to buy a duplex in Beverly Hills, so that he and his younger brother could attend the schools in that city, known to be vastly superior to the schools in surrounding Los Angeles.

“That was just the start of it. Mom and Dad went on to put me through two of the greatest schools in the world – the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Law. The economics were quite different from what they are today. My first year’s tuition at Berkeley was $637.50. Harvard Law was $3,500 for the entire year, which was a lot of money to my family.”

His parents and brother made the cross-country trip to Cambridge in August 1977 to help set him up in his dorm room and see what Harvard was all about. At one point that weekend, Jeff’s father suggested the two of them take a walk.

“Dad was looking around at the old buildings, taking it all in when he said — I’ll never forget it – ‘What an amazing thing: In two generations, our family has gone from my father selling vegetables from a pushcart on the streets of Chicago to now, my son is a student at Harvard Law.’”

“My paternal grandparents had come here from what is now Ukraine and settled in Chicago. Dad’s reflection was a profound statement about making it in America.”

Jeff can’t remember a time when he didn’t have it in mind to be a lawyer. His best explanation is that he gravitated to it naturally. He didn’t plan it so much as he was pulled toward it. At Beverly Hills High, he was both the editor of the student newspaper and a member of the debate team – verbal and persuasive pursuits that, as it happens, reinforced the gravitational pull law had on his young imagination.

Jeff’s mother lived in the duplex in Beverly Hills for over 50 years, until she passed away in April 2017. Jeff sent his daughter and two sons to the finest private schools he could find, put them all through college and sent one on to graduate school. And he is enjoying the latest stage of parenthood — being a dad to three bright, engaged adult children, and grandpa to two grandsons.

Jeff is in his third decade as a full-time, professional mediator. He believes deeply that everyone has the power to improve him or herself each day.

“I believe, too, that we have the ability to take control over huge aspects of our lives, which is a lot of what mediation is all about – people making decisions as to how to handle their conflicts. The theme manifests itself again and again in my work. I think it explains why I do the work I do. To me, it’s about helping people make better decisions. It’s also about helping lawyers be better lawyers.”