Page 5 - May June 2022 CBA Report

Steve Richey’s Third Act
Steve Richey has worn several hats.
“I’m kind of a late bloomer,” he says. “I keep feeling like I’m getting to be more and more myself as I go, with every evolution. And mediation seems to be the culmination of the teacher person and the lawyer person.”
A Montessori teacher and school founder turned litigator turned mediator, and now the Cincinnati Bar Association’s 2022- 2023 president, Richey has a knack for digging into whichever profession he’s currently pursuing.
By Leyla Shokoohe
Photography by Catie Viox
there my friends and I started the Children’s Meeting House Montessori in Loveland.”
Richey enjoyed the emphasis on child-centered learning, the hallmark of Montessori education. Both schools are still thriving, for the record. And in a stroke of serendipity, Montessori educa- tion also brought Richey together with his now-wife, Sharon. “Sharon and I connected when she came to observe my classroom. That tipped me off that she was interested in children.”
Act One
A Cincinnati native, Richey grew up in Anderson Township and grad- uated from McNicholas High School.
‘I’m kind of a late bloomer. I’m getting to be more myself as I go, with every evolution.’
A few years after their marriage, Sharon went back to college, to earn a degree in marketing. Richey was eager for a change of pace, too.
“I looked around and when I looked at all the opportunities to reinvent myself in midlife, there weren’t a lot,” he said. “Becoming a
“I was a really bad football player
and a good student,” he says. “I went
to Xavier, and I was headed in the direction of teaching English literature, so I was in grad school in Buffalo, working on a PhD.”
The world intervened with those plans: Richey graduated from Xavier in 1968, and his deferment from participating in the Vietnam War was up. Opposed to the war, Richey opted to become a Latin teacher at Walnut Hills High School. The experi- ence was less than optimal for Richey, who, because of his original collegiate teaching plans, had never taken a childhood education class. He transferred to a small, private school in the West End, where he was introduced to a Montessori classroom.
“That’s why I really got excited about education, and about early childhood education,” said Richey. “I went to Xavier again and got a master’s degree in early childhood education and then I got involved in starting schools. I got hired as one of the first teachers at the New School in North Avondale. And then from
child psychologist seemed like a possible transition...I was ready for a big change.”
Act Two
To supplement his teacher income, Richey had acquired his real estate license. Licensure required taking two courses; one was on real estate law.
“That’s really where the connection came,” he said. “The teacher there taught it just like a law school class and I thought, ‘Yeah, this is interesting. I like this.’ This is going to be another mindblower: when I later hired on at Thompson Hine, I found out he was one of the partners there in the real estate department. I told him he had inspired me to go to law school.”
(The teacher was Bill Martin, and yes, Richey did sell a few homes.)
THE REPORT | May/June 2022 | CincyBar.org 5