“He had seen up close and personal the impact of war, of losing friends,” said Andrea K. Schneider, who was Fisher’s research assistant at the Law School in the early 1990s. “War was not abstract—it was something that was dreadful and harmful and painful. He taught and said often that military power and economic might only get you so far; even if you win the war, you were going to lose friends along the way.”

Fisher dressed formally for each day of work in his Pound Hall office that was crowded with papers and books. He had “possibly the biggest smile you would ever see from a law school professor,” according to Schneider.

She said his work inspired a generation of law scholars who thank him for their love of field, including Schneider, who currently teaches at Marquette Law School.

Bruce M. Patton ’77—who, along with Fisher and William L. Ury, co-founded the Harvard Negotiation Project and was a co-author of the trio’s book “Getting to Yes”—said that Fisher was an endearing teacher.

“He would engage students in thinking with him about a problem, and he would listen,” Patton said. “He would listen to each different perspective.”

Patton first met Fisher as an undergraduate taking “Coping with International Conflict,” a popular course Fisher taught to undergraduates for 15 years. Fisher would send world leaders the conflict resolutions students would propose, according to Schneider, who was a teaching fellow for the course.

When teaching, advising, or parenting, Fisher, according to his son Peter, was known for putting his principles into practice.

“A lot of what goes into his theories of negotiation on conflict resolution is really getting inside the other person’s head, and he really could do that,” Peter said. “He could really put himself in your shoes. He could do that about your life, or about solving the Palestinian problem.”

—Staff writer Caroline M. McKay can be reached at carolinemckay@college.harvard.edu.