Edward J. Bergman, C’63, director of the clinical ethics mediation program in the Perelman School of Medicine and a professor of legal studies and business ethics in the Wharton School, died on November 22. He was 82.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Mr. Bergman graduated from Penn in 1963 with a BA in art history. He then received his JD from Columbia University and spent the following two years as a graduate fellow at Penn’s Annenberg School of Communications, where he worked in the documentary film laboratory. While at Annenberg, he received the American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker Award. After his fellowship, he began the private practice of law. His practice grew until, in 1989, he co-founded a law and mediation practice, Bergman & Barrett, in Princeton, New Jersey, with which he mediated a wide variety of complex cases in federal and state jurisdictions, including negotiation and drafting of contracts, administration of decedents’ estates, family law, and commercial matters.

In 1995, Mr. Bergman returned to Penn and began teaching undergraduate courses on negotiation and dispute resolution in the Wharton School’s department of legal studies and business ethics. Later, in 2005, he founded the Management of Clinical Conflict program in the Perelman School of Medicine, today called the Clinical Ethics Mediation Program. He regularly taught bioethics courses in the program, including Mediation for the Management of Clinical Disputes, Effective Physician-Patient Communication, The Physician-Patient Relationship and Negotiation, and Mediation for Health Care Professionals. In collaboration with professor Autumn Fiester, he conducted intensive clinical ethics mediation workshops, drawing national and international participants. Mr. Bergman joined Penn’s Twenty-Five Year Club in 2020.

In 2011, Mr. Bergman was awarded the William G. Whitney Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education for his book, Court-Annexed Mediation: Critical Perspectives on Selective Federal and State Programs. His publications in peer-reviewed journals, along with his contributions to three encyclopedia volumes on bioethics, are widely cited in his field.

Mr. Bergman is survived by his wife, Jennifer Mullen; his children, Peter Bergman and Amy Bergman Bonomi; his grandchildren, Liza Bonomi, Celia Bonomi, Zora Bergman, and Nathaniel Bergman; his former wife, Jane Shapiro; his niece, Maggie Bergman; and his great-niece, Maisie Bo.