Since 2008, High Conflict Institute has trained more than 500,000 professionals on the patterns of high-conflict behavior. Our work is grounded in Bill Eddy's High Conflict Personality Theory and refined through thousands of hours with courts, agencies, employers, and clinicians navigating their hardest cases. Today, under CEO Megan Hunter, HCI is scaling its programs globally to bring conflict-readiness to every team that needs it.
Most of the calls, complaints, and cases that consume a professional's time come from a small fraction of the people they serve. These aren't just "difficult" people — they share a recognizable set of patterns. Once you can name those patterns, you can prepare for them, structure interactions to absorb them, and stop being surprised every time.
HCI's mission is to put that vocabulary and that toolkit into the hands of every professional whose work depends on managing conflict — so the same proven moves are being made in family courts, HR offices, school principal meetings, and customer-service queues around the world.
An entrepreneur and a family-law-attorney-turned-clinician walked into the same problem from opposite sides in 2008. HCI is what they built together.
Megan leads HCI's strategy, growth, and global trainer network. A leading expert on high-conflict behavior in workplaces, customer service, government, and ombuds offices, she also co-hosts the It's All Your Fault podcast.
She's the team's primary partner for organizations bringing conflict-readiness into their leadership and HR functions — including HCI's Corporate Partnership program.
Bill pioneered the High Conflict Personality (HCP) Theory — the framework now used by courts, agencies, and employers worldwide to make sense of the small percentage of people who consume a disproportionate amount of conflict-management time.
Before co-founding HCI in 2008, Bill spent decades as a family-law specialist, senior family mediator, and licensed clinical social worker. He's the author of more than twenty books.
Most conflict-resolution training assumes everyone in the room wants to resolve the conflict. The HCI approach starts from a more useful premise: some people don't, and the ones who don't take up most of your time. Our methods are built for that reality.
We don't pathologize people — we name the patterns that make some interactions disproportionately hard. Once you can name the pattern, you stop being surprised by it.
High-conflict situations aren't solved by being calmer, kinder, or more empathetic. They're solved by a small set of structured skills you can learn, practice, and apply.
Our methods come from 70+ combined years of family law, mediation, clinical practice, and workplace consulting. Refined across thousands of organizations.
HCI is led by a small core team and supported by a global roster of certified speakers and trainers. Select a name to read their full bio.
Custom training, keynote speaking, conferences, judicial summits, board retreats, and our Corporate Partnership program for ongoing org-wide capability. Bill, Megan, or HCI senior trainers.
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