President, ADR Office of Harrie Samaras
Harrie Samaras is a full-time neutral in the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practice she founded – ADR Office of Harrie Samaras. She focuses her practice on mediating and arbitrating commercial disputes (domestic and international) involving intellectual property and business and technology issues.
Harrie is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the College of Commercial Arbitrators. She serves as a neutral on an ad hoc basis and for organizations including the American Arbitration Association (AAA)/ICDR, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), U.S. Council for International Business (ICC), U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), and U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Harrie is also certified by the International Mediation Institute.
During her legal career Harrie worked as an attorney in the corporate, private and government sectors. In private practice, she represented clients in intellectual property disputes before U.S. federal district courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO). As corporate counsel, Harrie served as the Director, Intellectual Property Litigation for a Fortune 100 telecommunications company, managing the company’s IP litigation worldwide, and she served as Vice President, Intellectual Property, Legal for the drug delivery business unit of an international pharmaceutical company. Early in her legal career, Harrie served as a staff attorney and law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and as a Patent Examiner at the PTO in the biomedical arts.
Harrie has held a variety of leadership roles in professional organizations, including serving as the Chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution. She is a frequent speaker and lecturer on ADR topics for bar and other legal associations and law students. Harrie has written many articles on ADR and is the editor and an author of the book ADR Advocacy, Strategies, and Practices for Intellectual Property and Technology Cases, published by the ABA Intellectual Property Section. She also authored a chapter on selecting arbitrators in the book Arbitrating Commercial Disputes in the United States published by the Practicing Law Institute.
Harrie is an awardee of the Sir Francis Bacon Alternative Dispute Resolution Award from the Pennsylvania Bar Association, Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee (May 2019). The Award recognizes individuals who have made a significant impact in bringing mediation and other forms of dispute resolution to Pennsylvania.
Harrie holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in the life sciences, a J.D. degree, and an LL.M. degree in Patent and Trade Regulation Law.
