Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 31 Listed Family and Civil Mediator

Since 2009

My professional career began in the Human Resources field where conflict management skills are essential. I began as a HR generalist with the University of Minnesota, College of Medical Sciences. I moved on to become a highly successful Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations Chief Spokesperson for a private, multi-hospital system with 13 separate union contracts where I represented the system in cases mediated by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). Later, as an Assistant General Manager for Administration in the public sector, I was responsible for the H.R., Labor Relations, Safety, Security, and Training departments. During that time, I continued teaching evening adult education classes at several community colleges; a lifelong interest that began years earlier with Rev. Leon Sullivan’s Opportunities Industrialization Center. Those experiences reinforced my passion for teaching and eventually led to a career transition to higher education teaching and administration.

In addition to teaching at UC Berkeley Extension, I co-initiated the design, delivery, and business development of Internet-based distance education courses, creating innovative online and hybrid programs for both domestic and international markets. As distance education and the Internet converged to offer worldwide access to knowledge and education through the revolutionary 2001 OpenCourseWare movement initiated by MIT, I witnessed significant concerns on the part of authoring faculty and administrators seeking to protect their respective intellectual property rights. That sparked my interest in mediation as a dispute resolution process.

The last three years prior to retirement, I was asked to transfer to UC Irvine to help solidify that campus’s initiative in online programming. Conflicts involving intellectual property rights surfaced again at Irvine and I began considering mediation as both a solution and a post retirement avocation. My previous HR and FMCS experiences had exposed me to the advantages mediation offers for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and I pursued and completed over 250 hours of formal ADR training.

I am now an accomplished TN “Rule 31 Listed”, non-attorney mediator focused on family, workplace, higher education, intellectual property, and civil disputes; qualified to practice in California (DRP-2002) and Tennessee (Rule 31-2009). I hold an appointment with the U.S. Department of Defense as ESGR Assistant Ombudsman Director for Tennessee mediating employers and service members disputing employment status following deployment with the National Guard or Reserve. In 2015, I was contracted as Campus Mediator for Meharry Medical College in Nashville.

I am a member of the Tennessee Association of Professional Mediators and also serve as a coach and guest evaluator for candidates completing training with Lipscomb University’s Institute for Conflict Management, Rule 31 Mediator training program.

In 2024, the Tennessee Supreme Court appointed me to a second three-year term as a commissioner on its Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission (ADRC). The ADRC administers procedures for training and approving mediators for use by the courts pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 31, which established court-based alternative dispute resolution on a state-wide basis. The commission is also responsible for evaluating the success of Rule 31 ADR proceedings and for suggesting rules and revisions to rules regarding alternative dispute resolution proceedings.

Chuck & Lorraine Hill’s
relocation to the Nashville
area and his mediation practice was featured in
Black Enterprise Magazine
October 2008