Meet Lucia Kanter St. Amour | VP of UN Women (San Francisco); Attorney; Activist; Author

Well, it wasn’t the plan; it was a matter of necessity. Six years into practicing law, in 2004, I had my first child who turned out to have a profound disability. I was managing a team of 14 interventionists for him at one point, with my second baby hoisted on my hip. I needed work that I could control and provided me autonomy. Ten years into practicing law and five years into my job as a law professor teaching negotiation, I went to Harvard Law School for my mediation certification, hung out my own shingle and started mediating cases. Little did I know at that time my decision would take my career international, lead me to UN Women USA as a VP, to starting my own nonprofit organization for other families with special needs children, or to becoming a best-selling author as one of only about half dozen women authors on my topic: negotiation. You just never know how life might unfold! I doubt any of that would have happened if I I hadn’t been forced to re-think everything; if I’d been able to remain in the predictable full-time legal career path I was already traveling at the time. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!

I filled my book, “For the Forces of Good: The Superpower of Everyday Negotiation” with my own original artwork. It’s a reminder that negotiation, in addition to being a skill, is an art. Art is extremely important. It is what got me through the early days, weeks, and months of 2022, which I began as a broken doll from enduring a prolonged and highly organized group bullying campaign in 2021 as the president/CEO of a very male dominated sports organization—following 94 years of men in that position. I took sabbatical from my law practice starting 1/1/2022 because I had been in other people’s conflict for 25 years and was in no condition to do so. I cried every day for 2 months. I trail-hiked every day with my Chocolate Labrador – and I hauled out all the art supplies one accumulates over the years as a mother (most of them unused), and just started making messes with color (I have no training in art, but have been a life-long supporter and lover of the arts). I found myself at peace when I was making those messes, and hours would pass without my noticing. So, I decided to include many of them in my book – the only negotiation book I know of with fun amateur artwork!

To start off, we would linger for a long time each morning over slow pour-over coffee (no auto coffee machines in my home) on my deck with its panoramic mountain view while my dog barked at the squirrels and I shouted at him to “sta tranquillo!” (he only speaks Italian). We would hike the trails surrounding my home (with my Chocolate Labrador); I would cook very legitimate Italian cuisine (not a huge fan of going out to eat – but it would be fun to have drinks at the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel and go for Dim Sum); we would see some art; we would go to Ocean Beach; we might participate in a Japanese tea ceremony with a friend of mine who does that; we would see the Diego Rivera murals at Coit Tower; we would visit the giant sequoias in Muir Woods; we might drive to Monterey for a sail and whale watching OR just pop over to Angel Island on the ferry. If they’ve never ridden on a cable car, we’d need to do that. It’s charming.

This is a shout out to sparkling mentorship. Mentorship seems to be a dying category of relationships these days. Law school was not the plan for me. I didn’t think I was cut out for it. Out of college (Go Bears!) I took a job with a small firm of arbitrators and mediators. They genuinely invested in my development and I’m still close with them today. Because of their mentorship, I summoned the courage for law school. And the hip bone is connected to the thigh bone is connect to the knee bone. I also had a particular mentor who inspired me to start my own nonprofit organization. Without my mentors, who were always there for me (without pumping false sunshine up my skirt), I wouldn’t be where or who I am today. People think of me as “powerful.” They call me things like a “Tour de Force,” which strikes me as humous given my small physical stature and modest midwestern upbringing. Well, I’m the product of a consistent support structure who was there to help peel me off the pavement and dust me off when I fell down – over and over again.