CAROL B. BERZ, LCSW, JD, PhD

Carol Berz is the Chief Executive Officer of Private Dispute Resolution Services, LLC, a mediation services and training organization headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and serves as a Chattanooga City Councilwoman representing District 6.

A civil and family mediator, Dr. Berz is listed by the Supreme Court of Tennessee as a Rule 31 Neutral and Trainer in General Civil and Family Mediation and as a Trainer in the special circumstance of Domestic Violence. In addition, Dr. Berz serves as a mediator for the United States Postal Service REDRESS program and does extensive teaching in both the public and private sectors in the areas of mediation, mediation advocacy, mediation ethics and employment and labor/management matters relative to the costs of corporate conflict.

Formerly the Director of Forensic Services for Joseph W. Johnson Mental Health Center, and subsequently its Executive Director, Dr. Berz also has served as a visiting professor at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, teaching social policy, law and ethics. She is a Board Certified Diplomat in Clinical Social Work, with extensive post-doctoral training in mediation, law and conflict management system design.

Dr. Berz served as the Chair of the Curriculum and Continuing Education Committee of the Mediation Association of Tennessee before becoming its President in March, 1998. She also chaired the Mediation component of the Hamilton County Courts’ Pilot Project relative to Tennessee’s Parenting Plan law and spent eleven years as a commissioner with the Chattanooga Human Rights/Human Relations Commission, dealing with employment and civil rights matters. Dr. Berz was the first woman Chairperson of that body.

Dr. Berz is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution in Washington, D.C., and the  immediate past-chair of the Ethics Committee.  Other professional memberships include the National Association of Social Workers, where she serves as a mediator for the national organization and the ADR Section of the American Bar Association, where she is a member of the ADR Ethics Education Sub-Committee.

Dr. Berz is a 1995 graduate of Leadership America in Washington, D.C., and is a former President of the Board of Directors, and life member of, the Moccasin Bend Girl Scout Council. She served on the Governor’s Task Force on Church Burnings and presently serves on the Executive Committee for the Tennessee Economic Council on Women, for whom she heads the Economic Impact Committee. Dr. Berz is a former Chair of the Board of Managers of the Hamilton Family YMCA and a former member of the Board of Directors of the Chattanooga Metro YMCA, where she served on the Human Resources Committee. She is the 2004 recipient of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce Athena Award, a sustaining member of Chattanooga’s Women’s Leadership Institute, and recently was honored by the City of Chattanooga for her unique contributions toward advancing equality of opportunity among the citizens of the City.

Dr. Berz studied liberal arts at Emory University and human service administration at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. Her master’s degree in social policy was completed at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; her law degree was completed at the Nashville School of Law; and her doctorate in social policy was completed at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in cooperation with Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition Dr. Berz is an IFTA certified Personal Trainer and is further certified by the Aquatic Exercise Association (AEA) and by the YMCA/USA as an Instructor and Trainer in  Aquatics, where she specializes in sports training and aquatic kick-boxing. Dr. Berz is a graduate of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School’s Insight Initiative Summer Learning Forums.