Tim Resch ‘98

Class of ‘98
International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
International Criminal Law

Tim Resch ’98 had no plans to practice international law when he graduated from the Law School. “I was pretty focused on staying and working in Portland,” he says. His first job after earning his J.D. was with Samuels Yoelin Kantor Seymour & Spinrad. “My practice was pretty diverse the first year, but evolved into a focus on litigation and employment law. In the spring of 2000, my firm allowed me to participate in the Multnomah County Special Prosecutor D.A. for a Day program. That was a fantastic experience—it was great to get into court and try cases in front of juries.”

In that same year, Resch found himself in Europe following his wife’s transfer to Nike’s Holland office. He secured a job with the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where he worked on cases involving the massacre of 200 civilians and charges of genocide and war crimes against Radovan Karadzic, a former president of the breakaway Bosnian Serb republic. Resch returned to the States and Samuels Yoelin Kantor Seymour & Spinrad in 2004, but was called back to the ICTY in early 2009 following the capture of Karadzic to help prepare for the upcoming trial. His law partners at Samuels Yoelin Kantor Seymour & Spinrad—and most important, his wife and new baby daughter—allowed him a six-month leave to finish the work he had started on the trial nearly five years earlier.