2021 Creighton Law Review Symposium Opening Remarks: Celebrating 15 Years of the Werner Institute

• Publication year: 2022

54 Creighton L. Rev. 471. 2021 CREIGHTON LAW REVIEW SYMPOSIUM OPENING REMARKS: CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF THE WERNER INSTITUTE

2021 CREIGHTON LAW REVIEW SYMPOSIUM OPENING REMARKS: CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF THE WERNER INSTITUTE

GAIL WERNER-ROBERTSON ^[D1]

Last spring, Creighton University President Reverend Daniel Hendrickson said: "While a Creighton education seeks to impart knowledge, so too it seeks to instill capacities for kindness, compassion, service to others, and a desire to build a world that better reflects justice and truth." The Werner Institute exists because truth and justice are the desired outcomes of every legal dispute, every courtroom encounter, and every verdict ultimately reached. But sometimes the quest for truth and justice is best served in negotiations outside the courtroom. As we all know, litigation is not always the answer.

Many years ago, when the idea behind the Werner Institute was conceived, my father C.L. Werner, founder of Werner Enterprises, postulated that millions of dollars in legal fees and infinite headaches and heartaches-not to mention the lost revenue-could be avoided if disputing entities could reach amicable agreements simply and effectively outside the courtroom. With that simple endgame in mind, he laid the groundwork for a program that could hone the unique skills required for successful negotiation, mediation, and arbitration. He did not envision these practices as replacing the services of the legal community, but as a supplemental activity that would still require their services outside the courtroom. Former Creighton University President Father John Schlegel suggested that such a program would fit well within the framework of Jesuit higher education, which seeks to inspire students to pursue truth, seek justice, form genuine relationships, and resolve disputes effectively...