He studied Japanese language, as well as Japanese history, business and art & architecture at both the University of Alabama and Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan, during the early 1980s. Following graduation from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1990, he returned to Japan to live and teach in a rural area deep within Japan’s Southern Chugoku mountain range. After that year in Japan, Richard returned to the U.S. to practice law, while while maintaining ties with friends in Japan.