Arbitration and Mediation (Alternate Dispute Resolution)
KATHERINE BENESCH has been active in alternate dispute resolution for over twenty five years and has served as an arbitrator, mediator, referee, special master and hearing officer in numerous cases of all types. She has been appointed to the Panel of Arbitrators and Mediators of the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) of the American Arbitration Association, and was elected to the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals and to the New Jersey Academy of Mediators and Arbitrators. Ms. Benesch is certified as a Mediator on the Panel of Mediators for the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, and was selected as a Mediator/Arbitrator in the Sandy Voluntary Alternative Dispute Resolution programs administered by Kenneth Feinberg and the United States District Court.
Ms. Benesch has served on the Large Complex Case, Commercial, M&A/Joint Venture and National Healthcare Arbitration Panels, as well as the Mediation Panel of the American Arbitration Association. She also is a member of the Dispute Resolvers Panels of Arbitrators and Mediators for the American Health Lawyers Association Dispute Resolution Service, and serves as Chair of its five-person ADR Service Review Board. Ms. Benesch serves as an arbitrator on panels of the International Institute for Conflict prevention and Resolution (CPR).
Ms. Benesch’s work includes arbitrator, mediator, and panel chair in complex contract cases, involving clinical research trials, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies and their contractors and suppliers, managed care, hospitals and/or hospital/physician relationships, networks, billing, bundling, collection and management services disputes, reimbursement and recoupment (including Medicare/Medicaid and private insurance), false claims and physician practice group disputes. She has served as Chair of the Healthcare and Life Sciences Committee for CPR, and has served as a member of the American Arbitration Association Healthcare Advisory Council. Ms. Benesch also serves on the CPR BioTech Distinguished Panel of Neutrals, as well as the CPR Employment, and Healthcare & Life Sciences Panels.
Ms. Benesch has completed over 150 hours of advanced training in arbitration and mediation. She also has taught courses to lawyers and judges on arbitration, mediation, managed care and other specialized topics, and has addressed a group organized through the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) in Buenos Aires, Argentina on alternate dispute resolution.
Ms. Benesch has arbitrated and mediated disputes of all kinds in New Jersey referred by the New Jersey Superior Court and the United States Federal District Court. Ms. Benesch has served as Chair, and on hearing panels with federal and state court appellate judges (retired), and as the sole arbitrator in cases that concluded in the settlements of over $200M, $50M and $25M lawsuits involving pharmaceutical disputes, managed care and other healthcare issues. In addition to her work in healthcare ADR, Ms. Benesch has successfully mediated shareholder disputes, as well as a long-standing dispute in federal court between a songwriter, who believed that music he wrote had been stolen by two hip-hop Grammy Award-winning musicians, and a world-wide record corporation.
Ms. Benesch’s ADR experience also includes work as an arbitrator for the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust, a Special Master appointed by the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to decide medical malpractice cases, a referee deciding Dalkon Shield cases in the program administered through the Private Adjudication Center at Duke University, a mediator for United States Arbitration and Mediation and as an arbitrator and mediator for the Lawyers Dispute Resolution Program of the New Jersey State Bar Association. She was appointed by the Supreme Court of New Jersey to serve as Chair of the state’s District VII Fee Arbitration Panel, by the Administrative Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County to a Special Committee on Medical Malpractice ADR to devise procedures for the Court, and has worked with U.S. Arbitration and Mediation to design procedures for mediation of disputes between hospitals, medical staffs and physicians.
