Bio: Michael Eisner

Michael Eisner, General Counsel

Michael Eisner is General Counsel at the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), where he oversees legal and financial issues. Mike worked as an Attorney-Adviser at the US State Department where he focused on Middle East issues and the peace process. He subsequently worked in NYC government as Deputy Commissioner of the City’s Home Care Program, and Democracy for the Arab World, where he was General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer.  He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, where he was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of International Law.  He subsequently clerked for a federal judge in the Southern District of New York.  In his spare time, Mike is a fiction writer, and the author of The Crusader, published in 13 languages.  The novel was inspired by a trip to Syria and a side visit to the Krak des Chevaliers, the “place of knights”, the greatest of the Crusader castles and a present-day UNESCO World Heritage site.  The novel recounts the siege of the Krak in 1271, when Baibars, the Sultan of Egypt, and his army surrounded the castle and forced the surrender of the garrison of Hospitaller Knights.