About James Gaitis

Among other things, over the course of his life James Gaitis has been a novelist, an award-winning energy arbitrator, litigator, European university academic, editor, whitewater kayaker, backcountry skier, long-distance runner, gardener, amateur astronomer, foreign language enthusiast, pecan grower, self-taught piano player, and a long-time vegetarian and conservationist. A nature- and animal-lover, he has lived in a variety of remote and secluded places, including off-the-grid for twenty-plus years in the shadow of British Columbia on the west flank of Montana’s Glacier National Park and on the outskirts of New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness and the Scottish Highlands. He obtained a BA in English Lit from the University of Notre Dame and a JD from the University of Iowa College of Law where he was a named editor of the Iowa Law Review. In addition to being the author of three published (or soon-to-be published) novels—A Stout Cord and a Good Drop, The Nation’s Highest Honor, and The View from Stansberry Lookout—he is also the author, co-author, and/or editor of a substantial number of academic publications, books and book chapters, and guides relating to domestic and international commercial arbitration. Together with his wife and soulmate of over four decades, he currently enjoys the quietude of a pinyon-juniper woodlands setting in the foothills of the Gila in Southwest New Mexico.