Newswise — Conflict happens. Litigation and other approaches that exact a high monetary as well as emotional price are not often the best solution to conflict.
The Creighton University School of Law Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution in the School of Law, is on the cutting edge of developing innovative approaches that reduce the costs of conflict and increase the opportunities for collaborative gain in the conduct of business, in relationships within and among organizations and communities, in the workplace, and in health care settings.
Although the Werner Institute will not act as a regular mediation provider, it will focus on offering education, training and development of the field in dispute systems design, conflict management, professional mediation, negotiation, teamwork and communication.
The first major initiative that Arthur Pearlstein, director of the Werner Institute and professor of law, is working on is the Program on Health Care Collaboration and Conflict, which is the first university-based program designed to integrate emerging health care issues with the practice of alternative dispute resolution.
"There are some great opportunities for Creighton to really assume a leadership role in developing major cutting-edge initiatives in health care conflict resolution," said Pearlstein.
There is no industry as ripe for the development and application of dispute resolution techniques and processes as healthcare. Incorporation of negotiation, mediation, facilitation, and dialogue techniques with emerging issues such as patient safety, healthy clinical environments, labor shortages, bioethics, technological advances, public health emergencies, health professions education, and access to health services will provide the necessary infrastructure for the evolution of the culture of health care.
Debra Gerardi, BS'84, BSN'87, JD'92, has been appointed as an adjunct professor of law as well as chair of the Program on Health Care and will guide development of the new program over the next two years. She is president and CEO of Health Care Mediations, Inc., in Kentfield, Calif., where she provides mediation/facilitations services, systems design and conflict management training programs for health care organizations.
"The concept of the Program on Health Care Collaboration and Conflict Resolution is to look at communication and conflict resolution in a broad sense as it applies to the health care industry," Gerardi said. "Ideally, we will provide people with the tools and processes for preventing disputes from escalating to a level of litigation. We also want to work with the legal community to broaden their tool kit for managing disputes that clients may bring to them. This expands options for attorneys, enabling them to respond to client needs without relying solely on litigation or power-based negotiation."
The Institute will be a major center for study and application of dispute systems design to organizations, including corporations, courts, communities, and health care institutions. The Institute already has a contract with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a U.S. government agency, to provide training and assistance with pilot projects across the country setting up programs within organizations to handle conflict. Among the pilot projects is one at the Nevada Test Site.
The Institute is in the process of creating an interdisciplinary curriculum at Creighton University that will lead to graduate certificates and masters degrees in negotiation and dispute resolution.
A series of executive programs for leaders in business, law, health care, and the workplace, to provide cutting edge training in negotiation, conflict management, mediation, and other valuable tools through lectures, interactive workshops, intensive courses and conferences will also be offered by the Werner Institute.
Pearlstein joined Creighton School of Law May 10, 2005, as director of the Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution and as professor of law. Prior to joining Creighton, Pearlstein was General Counsel and director of Alternative Dispute Resolution Programs, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, an independent federal dispute resolution agency, in Washington, D.C. He earned a master's in dispute resolution from Pepperdine Law School in 2001 and his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1981. Pearlstein served as a fellow in the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine and served on the mediation panel of the Los Angeles Superior Court, conducting more than 100 mediations of litigated cases with an emphasis on workplace issues.
The Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution was established in 2005 thanks to a $4 million gift from the C.L. Werner family, creating the most richly endowed program of its kind in the country. The mission of the Werner Institute is to be a leader in advancing the field of conflict resolution to a new quantum level with a focus on developing the next generation of practitioners and scholars who are responsive to the real, and often unacknowledged, needs of those in conflict.
You can visit the Werner Institute website at: http://law.creighton.edu/wernerinstitute/
Creighton University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located in Omaha, Nebraska, offers its 4,000 undergraduate and 2,700 professional and graduate students a unique atmosphere where students feel academically and professionally challenged and individually supported and inspired. Creighton has been a top ranked Midwestern university in the U.S. News & World Report magazine's "America's Best Colleges" edition for 19 years. For more information visit our website at: http://www.creighton.edu.
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