Richard Calkins

Richard M. "Dick" Calkins

October 1, 1931 – October 30, 2026

Richard M. "Dick" Calkins, a devoted family man, deep spiritual thinker, respected lawyer, educator, and passionate mediator and peacemaker, passed away Friday, October 30, 2026, at the age of 95. He attributed his life well-lived to his devotion to God and the loving support of his wife of 61 years, Anita Adcock Calkins. Beloved by his family and admired by friends, colleagues, and students around the world, Dick lived a life grounded in faith, love, and service to others. He was a lawyer, law school dean and peacemaker whose work taught generations of students around the globe to resolve conflict. He dedicated much of his life to teaching and inspiring others to embrace peacemaking, believing that resolving conflict was not simply about settling differences, but about bringing healing, understanding, and reconciliation. His enduring legacy is reflected not only in his remarkable professional accomplishments, but also in the countless lives he touched through his kindness, wisdom, and unwavering commitment to helping others.

His life and work

Dick was born October 1, 1931, in Washington, D.C., to Frederick Theodore and Alice Wirth Calkins. He was raised in Wilmette, Illinois, on the North Shore of Chicago, where he attended Howard School and then New Trier High School. His mother Alice was a big influence on his great success in diverse activities during his teen years. He greatly enjoyed football and was the starting running back on the New Trier football team; he was lauded as "Crazy Legs Calkins" in the local newspaper recounting his game-winning defensive interception and touchdown. He was captain of the track team, competing in sprints and the long jump. One highlight was winning the high school state championship in the 4x100 relay and setting a state record in 1948. His interests took him beyond sports, as a violinist in the high school orchestra, eventually becoming second chair, and in Boy Scouts, where he made Eagle Scout and was a member of the Order of the Arrow. He matriculated at Dartmouth College, where he played football, competed on the track team, served as class treasurer his junior and senior years, and majored in International Relations, writing his senior thesis on Communism in South America. Despite his lifelong abstinence from alcohol, he greatly enjoyed being a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, which would later gain notoriety as the basis for National Lampoon's Animal House. He graduated from Dartmouth with honors in 1953, and got to hear President Dwight Eisenhower give the famous commencement address, in which he urged the graduates to resist thought control in the McCarthy-led anti-communist era and not to "burn the books."

After graduation he took a blessedly short-lived job selling toilet paper for Scott Tissue Company before enlisting in the U.S. Army just after the Korean War cease-fire was signed. He served in the Army Counter Intelligence Corps from September 1953 to August 1956, beginning with basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas, and finishing his service in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was a photographer and taught classes on communism to the military and civilians. As he neared the end of his enlistment, he decided to use the GI Bill and asked a friend to send an application to a graduate program at Northwestern University; he didn't care which one. An application to the law school arrived, and he soon found himself back at home attending Northwestern University Law School. He found the perfect intellectual challenge, greatly enjoyed studying law, served on Law Review, and graduated Order of the Coif in 1959. He then settled in Wilmette, Illinois.

He began his career as a law clerk to Judge Elmer J. Schnackenberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago from 1959 to 1961. He then practiced law in Chicago, first with Chadwell, Keck, Kayser, Ruggles & McLaren from 1961 to 1969, where he became a partner, and then as a founding partner of Burditt & Calkins from 1969 to 1980. One highlight of his law career was his work to free the wrongfully imprisoned James Harden, the story he told in his book Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

In 1980 Dick became Dean of Drake University Law School in Des Moines, where he served until 1988. During his deanship the school established the Drake Agricultural Law Center, the Neal & Bea Smith Legal Clinic, and the Constitutional Law Center, and he began a lecture series that brought Chief Justice Warren E. Burger to Drake in 1988. He founded the Iowa High School Mock Trial program in 1983, followed in 1984 by Iowa's middle school program and a national high school mock trial competition. In 1985 he launched the first intercollegiate mock trial tournament and established the American Mock Trial Association, which he led as president for twenty years. Today about 600 teams from more than 400 colleges and universities compete in its tournaments every year.

When he stepped down as dean in 1988, Dick planned to return to his Chicago law firm, but Anita was not interested, and he wisely decided the family should stay in Des Moines. He still loved teaching and would continue as an adjunct law professor at Drake for decades after. He joined Zarley, McKee, Thomte, Voorhees & Sease as a partner and took his first mediation training that year. He felt that he had found his true calling. He turned to mediation and arbitration full-time in 1993 through his own firm, Calkins Law Firm in Des Moines, and went on to mediate more than 2,000 cases. He also trained thousands of lawyers, law students, and other professionals in mediation.

Dick founded the National Intercollegiate Mediation Tournament for undergraduate students in 1999. In 2000 he joined Fred Lane and Case Ellis in founding the International Academy of Dispute Resolution (INADR) and its student mediation tournament, which began in 2001 with eight teams from four law schools and has since welcomed participants from 48 countries on six continents. He founded the American Academy of ADR Attorneys and taught its 40-hour Calkins ADR Masterclass, training more than 1,200 lawyers and 1,300 law, college and high school students to be mediators. In 2017 he founded the Inns of Mediation, which brings local mediators and students together for mentoring, dinners and fellowship. Over the years he also served as president of the Blackstone Inn of Court, the American Academy of ADR Attorneys and INADR. In 2024 he, his daughter Kathie, and several mediator friends founded Teen Mediation International to bring peacemaking to secondary school students and teachers around the world through mediation training and tournaments, and he was still helping train its young mediators in his final weeks.

Dick was a prolific author, having written or co-authored 18 books and numerous articles. His books include the Lane and Calkins Mediation Practice Guide, Advanced Settlement Techniques, The Practical Psychology of Mediation, So You Want to Be a Mediator, The Apology trilogy on the Christian faith, and Magnum Opus, a collection of life stories and biblical wisdom written for his grandchildren. In his last week, at 95, he was still editing Magnum Opus for hours every day. "I just want to convey to the grandkids how much God loves them," he said about his last draft. A list of his books and selected articles appears at the end.

Faith and character

Faith was the center of Dick's life. He believed peacemaking was a lawyer's highest calling, and he brought a lawyer's careful eye to the Bible, studying how each of Jesus's teachings could guide everyday choices. He taught mediation as a way to heal people in conflict, not only to settle their cases. As he wrote in Chronicles of an American Mediator, "Unquestionably, lawyers who accept the challenge to become peacemakers embrace the highest calling in the legal profession and are placed on the pedestal with other healing ministries. That lawyer is worthy who lightens the burdens of others." Dick loved and actively served his church, First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Des Moines. Those who knew him remember a kind, generous and humble man who loved his students and colleagues, and who in his later years loved a good joke. Many mediators around the world call him their mentor. A friend of Dick's, John A. Jarvey, a 1981 Drake Law graduate and retired Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, expressed the sentiments of many: "A truly great Dean, mentor and friend. He is one of very few people I have met that I would call a true visionary. Let's grieve as long as we need to and then celebrate Dick as long as we live."

Family

Dick was preceded in death by his beloved wife of 61 years, Anita Adcock Calkins, "Nini" to her grandchildren, who passed on April 2, 2024. They were married March 16, 1963, in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was also preceded in death by his son-in-law Jeff Steele and his parents, Frederick Theodore and Alice Wirth Calkins.

 He is survived by his children: Chrissy Calkins Steele of Alton, Illinois; Frederick "Tad" Calkins (Julie) of Seattle, Washington; and Kathie CalkinsKeyes (Stephen) of Tucson, Arizona. To his grandchildren he was "Dickie," and he adored them: Annalicia, Richard Boone and Olivia Steele; Bree, Becca and Richard TJ Calkins; and Sam (fiancée Michelle), Stevie, Ron, Richard, and Lucy Keyes. He is also survived by his brother, Phil Calkins (Ruth), and many nieces, nephews, students and friends around the world.

Service and memorial gifts

A Celebration of Life service will be held on January 16, 2027, in Des Moines, Iowa, with details to be shared at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the organizations that Dick passionately supported:

• Teen Mediation International, the nonprofit Dick co-founded in 2024: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=JJU4HQPNS5A8J
• The Dick and Anita Calkins Fund at the International Academy of Dispute Resolution: https://wl.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=E370483&id=4
• First Church of Christ, Scientist, Des Moines: 801 Grand Ave., West Des Moines, IA 50265

Books by Richard M. Calkins

• Antitrust Guidelines for the Business Executive (Dow Jones-Irwin, 1981)
• The Greatest Miracle of Life (1995)
• Mediation: A Quest for Peace, with Fred Lane (Illinois State Bar Association, 2000)
• Quest for Peace: Finding Peace of Mind (2008)
• As I See It (2013) 
• Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2016) 
• Chronicles of an American Mediator (2016)
•  Lane and Calkins Mediation Practice Guide, with Fred Lane (Illinois State Bar Association; fourth edition 2016, fifth edition 2021) 
• So You Want to Be a Mediator: Eight Steps to Becoming a Peacemaker in Your Home, Place of Worship, at Work and in the Community (2017) 
• The Apology: A Study of the Christian Religion (2018; second edition, ReadersMagnet, 2025) 
• The Practical Psychology of Mediation (Illinois State Bar Association 2022)
•  Advanced Settlement Techniques (Illinois State Bar Association, 2023) 
• The Apology II: A Study of the Christian Religion (ReadersMagnet, 2025)
• Dickie's Book of Jokes (2025)
• The Apology III: A Study of the Christian Religion (ReadersMagnet) The Anthology: Resolution Through Mediation, edited with Jayne R. Reardon (Illinois State Bar Association, forthcoming 2026) 
• Love and Forgiveness: The Kingdom of Heaven Within Us (ReadersMagnet, forthcoming 2026) 
• Magnum Opus (forthcoming)

Selected articles

• "Intrabrand Territorial Allocations and the Per Se Rule," with Donald J. Polden, Drake Law Review 30, no. 1 (1980–81) 
• "Caucus Mediation—Putting Conciliation Back into the Process: The Peacemaking Approach to Resolution, Peace, and Healing," Drake Law Review 54, no. 2 (Winter 2006): 259
•  "The ADR Revolution," Rutgers Conflict Resolution Law Journal 6 (2008) 
•  "Mediation: The Radical Change from Courtroom to Conference Table," Drake Law Review 58, no. 2 (Winter 2010): 357
• "What the Mediator Knows that You Should Know," Iowa Defense Counsel Association annual meeting (September 2010)
•  "Mediation: A Revolutionary Process that Is Replacing the American Judicial System," Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution 13 (Fall 2011): 1
•  "The Future of Mediation in India," NLIU Law Review 3, no. 1 (2013)
•  "Challenges to the American Adversarial System," INADR.org (November 10, 2015)
•  "How I Became a Mediator," Drake Law Review Discourse (December 2016): 101 
• "Developing a Mediation Practice" 
• "Mediation: The Highest Calling" 
• "The Power of Mediation"