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Noted health law scholar Allison K. Hoffman joins Penn Law faculty

May 05, 2017

Allison K. Hoffman is an expert in health law and policy, particularly the role of regulation and the welfare state in promoting health.
Allison K. Hoffman is an expert in health law and policy, particularly the role of regulation and the welfare state in promoting health.
Health care law and policy expert Allison K. Hoffman will join the Law School’s faculty in July. Hoffman comes to the Law School from the UCLA School of Law, where she taught courses on health insurance and reform, health law and policy, and torts.

Health care law and policy expert Allison K. Hoffman will join the Law School’s faculty in July. Hoffman comes to the Law School from the UCLA School of Law, where she taught courses on health insurance and reform, health law and policy, and torts. In the fall semester of 2015, she was a visiting professor at Penn Law.

“Allison’s groundbreaking scholarship examines some of the most important legal and social issues of our time, and we are excited to welcome her to the Law School faculty,” said Ted Ruger, Dean of Penn Law and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law. “Her innovative research examines far-reaching effects of regulation on our health care system at a time when understanding effective health care is a critical issue for our country.”

“I am excited to become part of the Law School and the larger health policy community at the University,” said Hoffman. “I had the pleasure of teaching at Penn Law as a visiting professor, so I know first-hand about the innovative academic work, collaborative spirit, and engaged and talented students that define the Law School.”

Hoffman’s research examines the role of regulation and the welfare state in promoting health, as well as how regulation affects conceptions of risk and responsibility. Her recent work includes “Reimagining the Risk of Long Term Care” in the Yale Journal of Health Policy Law and Ethics—an article that argues for a more capacious vision of how we think about long-term care risk—and the Oxford Handbook of U.S. Health Law (2017), a volume co-edited with I. Glenn Cohen and William M. Sage. She also contributed a chapter to this volume entitled “What Health Reform Reveals about Health Law,” which explores the Affordable Care Act as a window into the idiosyncrasies of U.S. health care law and the values that have shaped this field. Her work and commentary has been featured in top media outlets, including the New York Times, The Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Morningstar, CNBC, the New York Daily News, Marketplace by American Public Media, Jotwell, and Penn Law’s Regulatory Review (formerly RegBlog).

Hoffman received her AB summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and her JD from Yale Law School. After graduating from law school, she practiced law at Ropes & Gray LLP, where she focused on health care regulation. Previously, she provided strategic advice to corporations and nonprofit organizations as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group and The Bridgespan Group. Just prior to joining the UCLA faculty, she was a fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard.

Hoffman joins four other scholars who have joined the Law School’s faculty in the past year. Beth Simmons and Ryan Doerfler came to Penn Law at the beginning of this academic year, David A. Hoffman (no relation to Allison Hoffman) joined the faculty in January.