Thursday, Jan 6th
8 a.m PST| 11 a.m EST
Offered by Will Work For Food and moderated by Jeff Kichaven (www.JeffKichaven.com ) and Jean Lawler (www.LawlerADR.com)
This worldwide conversation will be like nothing else. Join in! Share, learn, have fun.
Please Consider donating to Professor Bernard’s preferred food bank, Port Angeles Food Bank.
Our Special guest this week, Professor Phyllis Bernard, will present:
Does Mediator Neutrality Serve Justice?
Neutrality of the mediator has long been the foundation for ADR. We attorney mediators are trained that mediation is a "judgment-free zone" - where parties sift through information and emotions to derive their own best outcomes; assisted by a third-party who favors neither side and does not render legal opinions. Scholars studying the dynamics of race, gender, and class (myself included) have long questioned the degree to which this foundation is real, or merely a soothing illusion? Today, many of the uncodified norms essential for the Rule of Law to function as intended have faltered or failed. If there is cause to question whether the larger, more public systems of justice remain sound, isn't it time for ADR to have a wellness check? This brief talk opens the door for us consider the quote attributed to Dante, held dear by Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis remain neutral."
At OCU Prof. Bernard was the Robert S. Kerr, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and founding Director of the Center on Alternative Dispute Resolution. For nearly a decade she was Director of the Early Settlement Central Mediation Program for the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s Alternative Dispute Resolution System. Through the law school mediation clinic, Prof. Bernard engaged in ground-breaking empirical research and writing that tested theories of mediation and justice against the reality of actual cases. See “Minorities, Mediation and Method: One View from a Court-Connected Mediation Program,” 35 FORDHAM URBAN LAW JOURNAL 1 (2008).
Prof. Bernard came to OCU after a career on the “fast track” of Washington, D.C. in private practice; culminating in a political appointment by the Reagan Administration to the Provider Reimbursement Review Board (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services), the final administrative appellate body for institutional providers under Medicare Part A. After completing her term, Prof. Bernard authored a study and proposal for the Administrative Conference of the U.S. that created a highly successful ADR program for case management at the PRRB. https://phyllisbernard.com/