The New Hampshire Department of Justice’s Charitable Trusts Unit (CTU) was established to protect the public’s interest in the organizations and assets committed to charitable purposes in the state through registration, education, and enforcement.

As part of its mission the CTU reviews change-of-control transactions for health care charitable trusts to confirm compliance with statutory requirements. The strain of Covid-19 has led to an increase in these transactions, with smaller, more rural hospitals disproportionately affected. The new relationships between are often challenging, sometimes so much so that some conflicts have caused newly affiliated health care charitable trusts to disaffiliate, causing additional strain to the rural health care system. The CTU has engaged the Harvard Dispute System Design Clinic to develop resources that will help these affiliations navigate conflict more successfully.

Students will:

• Conduct interviews of current and former members of the Charitable Trusts Unit with experience reviewing health care charitable trust change-of-control transactions, as well as board members, executives, attorneys, consultants and researchers active in this sphere;
• Conduct surveys or focus groups to identify practices that result in effective and healthy conflict resolution among boards of affiliated health care charitable trusts;
• Research best practices and identify useful models for conflict resolution, board governance, conflicts of interest, and other related topics from similar contexts in other states and industries;
• Develop guidelines, best practices, training materials or other resources that are specific to the conflicts that boards are likely to face when they affiliate.