HEALTH LAW

PENN LAW FACULTY

PENN LAW ADJUNCTS & LECTURERS

TOLL PUBLIC INTEREST CENTER PARTNERS AT PENN

PRO BONO PLACEMENTS

AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania
American Law Institute
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
City of Philadelphia Law Department – Health & Adult Services; Heath & Human Services
Community Legal Services, Inc. – Elderly Law Project; Public Benefits
Department of Health & Human Services
Medicare Rights Center
New Jersey Office of the Public Defender
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Inc.
New York Legal Assistance Group
Penn Biotech Group
Pennsylvania Health Law Project
Piper Rudnick, LLP
Public Counsel Law Center
Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia (PILCOP) – Children’s Health Care
Sidley Austin Brown & Wood
Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Coalition (SEAMAAC)
Trisomy 21 Program at CHOP
University of Pennsylvania Center for Community Partnerships
University of Pennsylvania Health System Center for Bioethics
University of Pennsylvania Office of the Vice President and General Counsel

Penn Law Courses

We live in an administrative state, populated by thousands of governmental bodies that collectively exercise pervasive authority over the entire economy and the lives of every American. Unlike courts, which enjoy explicit constitutional independence, administrative agencies constitute a constitutionally ambiguous "fourth branch of government." Also unlike courts, most agencies have authority to wield a wide variety of regulatory powers other than adjudication, including rulemaking, licensing, advice-giving, and prosecution. "Administrative law" is the body of constitutional, statutory, Executive, and "common law" principles that constrain and thereby seek to legitimate the exercise of these powers. This course will be a critical examination of these principles. Topics include: the place of agencies in our tripartite structure of government, the choice between rulemaking and adjudication as devices for making policy, procedural requirements for the exercise of various administrative powers, and judicial review of administrative decisions.

This seminar will consider the law of intentional torts from the perspective of intergroup and intragroup conflict. Although many tort actions involve strangers, intentional tort actions very often arise from the repeated or continuous interaction between contending groups or communities whose members are united by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, or class. Moreover, members of the groups or communities may be divided among themselves and resort to the tort law as well to resolve their differences. The goal of the course is to develop techniques for analyzing legal disputes with regard to the full context in which they arise, particularly as viewed from the perspective of groups or persons of subordinate status. Among the topics to be explored are the construction of women's consent to medical procedures (including sterilization, female genital surgery, and plastic surgery); consent to physical and emotional assault within the context of male bonding associations (teams, gangs, and fraternities); false imprisonment and worker exploitation; gentrification as a tort; and defamation, invasion of privacy and the maintenance of social stratification.

This seminar course will focus both on fundamental questions, including whether conceiving of rights for animals is appropriate, and on an understanding of the current legal and administrative means through which the relationship between humans and animals is regulated. We will discuss the fact that nonhuman animals are not legally “persons” and have no legal rights, per se, only limited legal “protections.” Discussion of animal “rights” will necessarily entail an examination of the sources and characteristics of fundamental rights, why animals have historically been denied them, and whether legal rights are appropriately limited to humans. Further, we will discuss whether, if any such rights were recognized, what nonhuman animals should be entitled to them and, if so, to which legal rights they should be entitled. The class will also consider such issues as establishing standing for animal suits, the definition of “animal” as applicable to anti-cruelty statutes and an analysis of the law and theory behind the protections afforded (or not afforded) animals under various federal and state laws. The focus will be on the status of animals as property, the doctrine of standing, and the nature of legal rights as applied to nonhuman animals. We will examine the content and enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Animal Welfare Act and accompanying regulations. A research paper (or possibly a few short papers) will be required.

This course will examine the regulatory environment that surrounds the United States health care delivery and financing systems. After providing an overview of the structure of the health care system, it will survey common law, statutes, and regulations that affect hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers. The course will explore how health care regulation may help or hinder three major goals of policy makers: increasing access, reducing cost, and improving quality. Specific topics include the regulation of health care quality through licensing, accreditation, tort liability, and other mechanisms; anti-fraud and abuse laws; antitrust law as applied to hospitals and physicians; and legal approaches to preserving health care access. (While our discussion of health care regulation will necessarily touch on ethical questions, the course will not focus on bioethical issues; nor will it address pharmaceutical or medical device regulation.) Casebook readings will on occasion be supplemented by government publications, policy materials, and Atul Gawande's book, Complications: A Surgeon's Note on an Imperfect Science.

This seminar will proceed in two parts. In the first half of the semester we will discuss the tools of microeconomics and statistical analysis as they apply to questions of health law and policy, including the general topics of insurance markets (both private and public), healthcare financing, medical malpractice and medical errors, and the labor market for healthcare professionals. During the second half of the semester, we will examine the recent empirical literature on a host of topics within health law and policy.

Admission will be limited to a maximum of 8 law students. Child abuse and neglect is a serious and chronic national problem that demands increased academic and clinical attention. Such child maltreatment gives rise to complex medical, psychological, parenting and legal issues. Unfortunately, the structures in place to respond to children who have suffered abuse or neglect are disjointed, and many of the providers of services to children at risk are inadequately trained and lack needed experience in collaborating to address the children=s immediate and long-term needs. Dr. Christian, a pediatrician, and Director of the Child Abuse Referral and Evaluation (ACARE@) Clinic at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (ACHOP@), and Professor Lerner will offer an innovative, interdisciplinary, clinical seminar to bring together medical students, residents and/or fellows, and graduate social work students with upper class law students to study and compare the context, identification, and treatment of child abuse and neglect; the legal, social services and medical systems' responses to child maltreatment; and the treatment and advocacy skills necessary to help maltreated children survive and prosper. In the process, the students will jointly examine and grapple with important professional responsibility issues that arise in such interdisciplinary work. In addition to academic study of these issues, the students in the Clinic will collaborate to provide legal representation and other forms of advocacy as child advocates or Guardians Ad Litem for children who come into the jurisdiction of the Philadelphia Family Court's dependency court rooms.

This course addresses the basic theoretical and scientific foundations of mental health law and then applies the foundational principles to the understanding of various criminal mental health law doctrines, including various competencies, the right to refuse treatment, the insanity defense, quasi-criminal commitment, and mitigation based on mental abnormality. The course is both theoretical and practical, and will be of use to students interested in the relation of mental health and law in any legal context.

People who are ill with bipolar disorder, major unipolar depression, schizophrenia and other DSM-IV mental illnesses have rich and difficult moral lives. Noted psychiatrists, including Sigmund Freud himself, have noted the problems of excessive and deficient moral responsibility-taking by their bipolar patients. Dr.Kay Jamison is perhaps the most famous of the contemporary autobiographers who have described struggling with issues of identity and shame that result from her acts of violence, dependency and neglect. Often educated, well-brought up, and well-employed, many people with mentally illnesses know right from wrong. Yet sometimes they do the wrong thing. They hit, lie, cheat, bribe, molest. Many of their most hurtful, damaging and illegal acts are the direct result of illnesses that unleash negative impulses and distort judgment. This seminar will examine how moralists recommend that a just and caring society judge and respond to the harmful and offensive acts of the mentally ill. The seminar will also examine how that law treats the mentally ill--refusing to excuse them for their torts and criminality, save in a narrow set of exceptional circumstances. Who should we blame? What is an excuse? What, if anything, do the ill owe the people they harm? What special moral obligations, if any, pertain to the mentally ill, their families and caretakers? Should the mentally ill be liable for intentional torts or negligence? And what about ordinary and heinous crimes?

Privacy law is an emerging legal specialty with old, established roots in common law and the constitution. This course examines some of the cases, constitutional provisions, and state and federal statutes that together comprise the privacy law of the United States. The fundamental concern of the course will be the concept of privacy in its diverse -- and sometimes controversial -- uses by legislatures, courts, and the right-claiming public. The course will consider the actual and ideal role of law in protecting commonly ascribed rights of privacy and private choice. The course will cover privacy in relation to journalism, the internet, finance, government surveillance, health care, families, and sexuality.

This seminar will explore legal responses to issues of gender that arise in a variety of different contexts, including civil liberties, the family, employment, education, and athletics. Topics will include, among others, reproductive decisions, sexuality, pregnancy intervention, sexual harassment, discrimination in athletics, gay/lesbian family law, and other timely issues of sex discrimination.

Societies have cultivated tobacco and have fought over its manufacture, sale, and consumption for centuries. As tobacco's health consequences have become more clear, increasingly volatile conflicts have emerged over taxing tobacco, regulating cigarette advertising and sales, and limiting where people can smoke. This seminar will explore the legal, political, ethical, and policy issues that underlie the current conflict over smoking in the U.S., as well as in other industrialized democracies. Our focus will be on the clash between the rights of individuals who 'choose' to smoke, and the responsibility of the government to safeguard public health. We will read judicial opinions, scholarly articles, books, legislation, and popular materials.