MICHAEL AND MARY
JAHARIS HEALTH LAW INSTITUTE
ANNUAL REPORT 2019–2020 1
FROM THE DIRECTORS Though it has been a challenging year for the world, we still want to take this opportunity to focus on some positive news from the Jaharis Health Law Institute (JHLI). First, we are thrilled to welcome Executive Director Alice Setrini. Prior to joining us, Alice served as manager of Legal Aid Chicago’s Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLP) Project. She brings to DePaul a commitment to both health justice and equity, and she is excited to work with students, alumni, scholars and the broader Jaharis community. We will miss Executive Director Katherine Schostok and thank her for her tremendous work on behalf of JHLI, but she will continue to stay involved through teaching and as a member of our advisory board. Second, we are delighted to announce that two Jaharis Faculty Fellows accepted tenure-track positions starting this academic year. Valerie Gutmann Koch is now an assistant professor of law and co-director of the Health Law & Policy Institute at University of Houston Law Center, and Charlotte Tschider is an assistant professor of law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law where she will be actively involved with the Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy. As we say goodbye to them, we are so pleased to welcome our new faculty fellow Theodosia Stavroulaki, an expert in competition law in the pharmaceutical and health IT sectors, and to welcome back for the second year of her fellowship Sharon Bassan, a bioethicist who researches and writes on emerging technologies. As the world continues to fight COVID-19, we continue to support our students and alumni and seek to address issues of health disparities, particularly relating to race. To that end, we are excited to announce the new Bremer Fund for Health Law & Racial Justice, which will support students in their work to address health disparities affecting communities of color. In addition, we are pleased to partner with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine on a fellowship for a recent DePaul graduate to study the racial impact of COVID-19. However, what we are extremely proud of, given the difficult hiring environment, is that all of our recent JHLI graduates are employed! We thank our alumni and Institute supporters who were crucial in making that happen. We especially want to thank Katherine Schostok for all her efforts on this front. Finally, our faculty also have been tireless in sharing their expertise as the world fights COVID-19. You can view their many op-eds, media appearances, articles and advocacy on the Institute website. Several Institute professors also recorded a video series with the American Health Law Association about the impact of COVID-19. Professor Wendy Epstein has written and spoken about the need to preserve the Affordable Care Act amidst the pandemic, on issues of telemedicine and race (with Professors Helveston and Konnoth), pandemic guidelines (with Professors Koch and Persad) and COVID reimbursement issues. Professor Josh Sarnoff has written about the right to repair during a pandemic. Jaharis Faculty Fellow Valerie Koch wrote extensively about allocating scarce resources, crisis standards of care and malpractice liability during the pandemic, and former Jaharis Faculty Fellow Ana Santos Rutschman widely shared her expertise on pandemics and vaccine innovation. There is much more to share in the pages ahead. Stay healthy. And as always, we are very thankful for your continued support, and we welcome your feedback and suggestions. Sincerely, Wendy Netter Epstein Faculty Director
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Alice Setrini Executive Director
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New JHLI Executive Director Alice Setrini
JAHARIS COVID-19 RESPONSE
Alice Setrini joined the Jaharis Health Law Institute as executive director in May 2020. She came to DePaul from a career in legal services, most recently as manager of Legal Aid Chicago’s Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLP) Project beginning in 2015.
The Jaharis health law faculty are public academics. Not only do they educate students, but they widely share their expertise and analysis on issues of international importance. Never has that job been more important than now.
Setrini has worked closely with a wide range of medical partners while leading the nationally recognized Health Justice Project in collaboration with Erie Family Health Centers. She also managed Health Forward/Salud Adelante, an innovative MLP between Cook County Health, Chicago Department of Public Health and Legal Aid Chicago, as well as Justice through Generations, an MLP with Rush University Medical Center’s Social Work and Community Health Program. This past academic year, Setrini taught in Loyola University School of Law’s Weekend JD Program in their Health Justice Project Legal Clinic. Setrini brings years of experience collaborating in multidisciplinary settings to maximize both health system returns on investment and improvement in health outcomes for individuals through legal interventions. She has presented locally and nationally on the value of using the law as a strategy for addressing social determinants of health, and she has lectured at Loyola’s Health Justice Project Clinic and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law’s Civil Litigation Clinic on implicit bias and structural racism. Setrini’s experience with utilizing MLPs as a model for legal service delivery that can have an impact on the structures that keep people in poverty will inform her work with DePaul students in all areas of health law. Setrini received both her BA and JD from Northwestern University. Her most recent publications include: • Treating Poverty: Legal Tools for Health-Harming Needs, 69 DEPAUL L. REV. 2020 • “What Health Law Practitioners Can Do Now to Address Disparities Highlighted by COVID-19,” JHLI e-Pulse Blog (May 26, 2020) 4
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HEALTH LAW FACULTY PROFESSOR WENDY NETTER EPSTEIN is an expert in the financing and delivery of health care. This past year, she wrote about the need to find creative ways to prompt health insurance uptake, which she is continuing to explore through a series of empirical projects. COVID-19 has caused rates of uninsurance to soar, making this problem all the more consequential. She also wrote about the dire need to preserve the Affordable Care Act during this pandemic (while 18 states are arguing to the Supreme Court that it should be struck down), as well as about the need for states to adopt pandemic guidelines. She also engages extensively with the media and has been quoted or appeared in sources such as The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, KHN, Politifact, Crains, Morning Consult, as well as local press outlets, including Chicago Tonight. RECENT PUBLICATIONS
PROFESSOR JOSHUA SARNOFF is an internationally recognized expert on the intersections of intellectual property law, environmental law and health law, as well as constitutional, administrative and international law. His current research focuses on innovation policy and technology development; climate change technology and data, climate modification and governance; utility and design patent empirical analyses, history and theory; responses to pandemic diseases; and intellectual property rights in genetic and natural resources, diagnostics and therapeutics. RECENT PUBLICATIONS
• “The Right to Repair in a Pandemic,” Northwestern University Law Review Online (NULR of Note) (May 20, 2020) • “COVID-19 Highlights Need for Rights to Repair and Produce in Emergencies,” Harvard Law ill of Health Blog (May 19, 2020)
• Private Law Alternatives to the Individual Mandate, 104 MINN. L. REV. 1429 (2020) (paper presented at UCLA School of Law, Cardozo School of Law, the American Enterprise Institute and on the Ipse Dixit Podcast)
PROFESSOR MARK WEBER primarily focuses on the areas of complex tort litigation, disability rights issues and special education law. He presented on “Emerging Trends in Disability Discrimination in Employment” to the Illinois Human Rights Commission in October 2019 and has presented testimony on the implementation of the ADA to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
• “Pandemic Guidelines, Not Changed Malpractice Rules, are the Right Response to COVID-19,” Harvard Law Bill of Health Blog (May 19, 2020) (with Valerie Gutmann Koch and Govind Persad) • Commentary, “Without Obamacare, the COVID-19 crisis would be much worse,” Chicago Tribune (April 1, 2020) (with Christopher Robertson)
PROFESSOR MAX HELVESTON is an expert in issues related to insurance, consumer protection and data privacy. Returning to the faculty full-time after serving as the associate dean of academic affairs and strategic initiative for the past three years, he has started work on several projects related to the commercialization of consumer health data, innovations in health care delivery and the regulation of the health insurance plans offered by large, selfinsured employers. Additionally, he has begun working with Professor Wendy Epstein and legal scholars at other institutions on pieces addressing health equity issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
• Of Immigration, Public Charges, Disability Discrimination, and, of All Things, Hobby Lobby, 52 ARIZONA STATE L.J. 245 (2020)
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
• Reining in Commercial Exploitation of Consumer Data, 123 PENN. ST. L. REV. 667 (2019) 6
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FACULTY FELLOWS CURRENT THEODOSIA STAVROULAKI (2020-2021) Dr. Theodosia Stavroulaki joined the College of Law in August as the 2020-2021 Jaharis Faculty Fellow. She previously worked as an antitrust associate in a leading law firm in Greece that advised multinational firms in competition law issues in the pharmaceutical, automotive and IT sector, which led her to focus her teaching and research on antitrust law and health care antitrust. Stavroulaki’s work has been published in the Loyola Consumer Law Review, the American Journal of Law & Medicine, World Competition Law & Economics Review, and CPI Antitrust Chronicle. Her research also has been funded by a number of prestigious institutions such as the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law, the Fulbright Commission, NYU School of Law, University of Michigan Law School, European University Institute, Tel Aviv University, the European Commission, the Greek Scholarships’ Foundation, and the Greek Association of Law and Economics. After receiving funding from Collegio Carlo Alberto and Turin University, Stavroulaki drafted a paper that examines the impact of COVID-19 on hospitals’ incentives to merge and the criteria and analytical framework under which competition authorities in both Europe and the U.S. should assess such mergers. Her forthcoming book, HEALTHCARE, QUALITY CONCERNS AND COMPETITION LAW: A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH, explores how health care quality concerns are considered by competition authorities in both Europe and the U.S. and unveils the core antitrust and equity concerns that emerge in the age of big data revolution in health care. The book also assesses the impact of COVID-19 on antitrust enforcement in health care. Over the past year, Stavroulaki has researched the role of antitrust law in ensuring the public policy objectives of the U.S. higher education sector. This project, which she initiated during the previous academic year as a Fulbright Scholar and Hauser Global Fellow at NYU School of Law and Grotius Research Scholar at Michigan Law School, grew out of her observation that, similar to health care, the main actors providing higher education services–primarily universities–often enter into anticompetitive agreements or boycotts aiming to reduce the competitive rivalry and protect quality. Stavroulaki researched this debate in her paper, Equality of Opportunity and Antitrust: The Curious Case of Academic Rankings, and presented her main findings at the Annual Conference of Academic Society of Competition Law in June 2020.
SHARON BASSAN (2019-2021) In her paper, Data Privacy Considerations for Telehealth Consumers amid COVID-19, Jaharis Faculty Fellow Sharon Bassan examines the implication of the Breach Notification Rules and the legal waiver on patients’ health information privacy and how privacy protections under the notification divert from protections under HIPAA in unusual times of public health emergency. The paper recommends what precautions patients should take before switching to online consultation. Similarly, her paper, Protecting Anonymous Political Associations While Tracing the Pandemic with Contact Tracing Mobile App, focuses on Proximity Tracing Apps (PTAs) and data location services, and she argues that data privacy is necessary for contact tracing applications to be beneficial and ethical. Bassan is currently working on two papers that are part of her forthcoming book REGULATING CROSS-BORDER SURROGACY. The first paper, Surrogacy in Israel: What’s Next?, discusses the
regulation of surrogacy services in Israel, which is founded upon formative narratives of reproduction as a positive value that is nationally supported. The second paper, Two National Strategies to Address Cross-Border Surrogacy—the Israeli Case, focuses on two strategies to Cross-Border Surrogacy Markets (CBSMs) taken in Israel, evaluates their proposed solutions from an ethical point of view, and recommends future steps. This past academic year, she also created a Jaharis podcast series covering issues involving innovative health technologies prior to COVID-19, including:
• Jessica Roberts’s paper, Genetic Duties, which discusses genetic “Variants of Uncertain Significance” (i.e., a finding that has been identified through genetic testing but whose significance to the function or health of an organism is not known), whether patients should be informed about them once their significance is discovered, and whose duty it is to let patients know. Roberts is a professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center. • Yaniv Heled’s paper, The Case for Disclosure of Biologics Manufacturing Information, which asks whether the law could require disclosure of manufacturing information of biologics. The discussion surrounds public use in data vs. public good in incentivizing innovation by keeping information confidential. Heled is an associate professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law. • Nicholson Price’s paper, The Cost of Novelty, which argues that patent law advances new, rather than better, market value on which intellectual property law relies, and it systematically values some goods differently than a social planner or a committee of scientists might. The equilibrium between these conflicting values creates a situation in which society cannot enjoy the innovation it might have, because the industry is not incentivized to research them. The paper also discusses benefits in innovation versus social justice considerations and considers suggestions to encourage other types of innovation. Price is a professor of law at University of Michigan Law School. • Sharona Hoffman’s paper, What Genetic Testing Teaches about Predictive Health Analytics Regulation, which notes that like genetic testing, predictive health analytics raises significant concerns about psychological harm, privacy breaches, discrimination, and the meaning and accuracy of predictions. It discusses the similarities between genetic testing and big data, and it considers legal options to manage the risks. Hoffman is a professor of law, professor of bioethics, and the co-director of the Law and Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
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FACULTY FELLOWS ALUMNI VALERIE GUTMANN KOCH (2019-2020) Jaharis Faculty Fellow Alumni Valerie Gutmann Koch previously served as the senior attorney and special advisor to the New York State Task Force on Life and Law and is an expert in ventilator allocation policy, having worked on the issue for many years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her articles have been featured in the American Journal of Bioethics, The Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, Harvard Law’s Petrie Flom Blog and STAT News. She also has been interviewed, quoted and profiled by a number of publications such as WBEZ’s Reset, the Chicago Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business on scarce resource allocation and bioethics during a pandemic. Additionally, she recently recorded episodes of a mini-series surrounding these topics as part of a collaboration with the College of Law, the American Health Law Association and dBase Media.
CHARLOTTE TSCHIDER (2018-2019) Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, former Jaharis Faculty Fellow Charlotte Tschider helped an international organization navigate the FDA emergency approval processes to get masks, disinfectants and other personal protective equipment for organizations and people who need them. This past academic year, Tschider was invited to participate in a variety of panels, including The University of Chicago’s Human and AI Interfaces: Science and Law Panel, Santa Clara Law’s Tech Law Journal and Journal of International Law Machine’s Learning Symposium, and Suffolk Law’s Second Annual Intellectual Property Conference. She also was a presenter at the American Association of Law Schools conference on the New Voices IP Panel, the Wiet Life Sciences Scholars Conference and the ASLME Health Law Professors Conference. Additionally, Tschider was selected for a medical humanities and social sciences conference in Helsinki, Finland, for her and her co-author’s work on hearing aids and data protection. This collective work resulted in three articles and a grant from Syracuse University. In addition to her speaking engagements, Tschider published the book, CYBERSECURITY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH, and two articles: The International Regulatory Impasse of AI-Enabled Devices in Legal, Social and Ethical Perspectives in Health & Technology, and Balancing the Halo: Algorithmic Secrecy and Data Surveillance Disclosure in Medical Devices in the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine. In August 2020, Tschider joined Loyola University College of Law’s Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy as a tenure-track law professor.
ANA SANTOS RUTSCHMAN (2016-2018) Ana Santos Rutschman is an expert in pandemics and vaccine innovation. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she published various articles on vaccines, including Vaccines and IP Preparedness in the Coronavirus Outbreak in the Northwestern University Law Review blog (NULR of Note), The Intellectual Property of Vaccines: Takeaways from the Recent Infectious Disease Outbreaks in the Michigan Law Review Online, and The Mosaic of Coronavirus Vaccine Development, Systemic Failures in Vaccine Innovation in the Columbia Journal of International Affairs. She also has been quoted at length about COVID-19 vaccines and about Missouri’s lawsuit suing China over COVID-19, and she has appeared in the media as an expert on these topics.
Koch also writes more generally about crisis standards of care and medical malpractice liability and presents widely on issues of bioethics, emerging technologies and informed consent and research. In February 2020, she presented at the University of Chicago MacLean Center’s Seminar Series on the 21st century legal challenges to the doctorpatient relationship, and in October 2019, she presented on the top 10 legal developments in bioethics at the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities and the Humanities and for the Arizona Bioethics Network. In Fall 2020, Koch began a tenure-track position at the University of Houston Law Center where she also co-directs the Health Law & Policy Institute. RECENT PUBLICATIONS
• “Pandemic Guidelines, Not Changed Malpractice Rules, are the Right Response to COVID-19,” Harvard Law Bill of Health Blog (May 19, 2020) (with Wendy Netter Epstein and Govind Persad) • “Physicians Should Not Be Forced to Determine Resource Allocation: Triage Committees May Reduce Physician Trauma,” Health Affairs (May 8, 2020) (with Susie A. Han) • “How States are Protecting Health Care Providers from Legal Liability in the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Harvard Law Bill of Health Blog (May 5, 2020) • “Denying Ventilators to Covid-19 Patients with Prior DNR Orders is Unethical,” The Hastings Center (April 21, 2020) • Eliminating Liability for Informed Consent to Medical Treatment, 53 U. RICH. L. REV. 1211 (2019) • Everything in Moderation: Dual-Role Consent and State Law Mandates, 19(4) AM. J. BIOETHICS 35-37 (2019) (with Nadia Sawicki) 10
Rutschman’s speaking engagements include the New York University Law School’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy & R Institute’s panel on “Innovation During COVID-19: From Vaccines to Open-Source Ventilators to Homemade Masks,” the World Trade Institute’s panel on “IP Protection and Access to Medical Technology in Health Emergencies,” the University of Oklahoma College of Law’s first conference on the “Coronavirus and Law,” and VIT University Law School’s panel on “Technological Progress, COVID-19 and the Future of Globalization.” After serving as a Jaharis Faculty Fellow, Rutschman joined the Saint Louis University School of Law as an assistant professor of law.
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AMERICAN HEALTH LAW ASSOCIATION (AHLA) COVID-19 HEALTH LAW DISRUPTION VIDEO SERIES The Jaharis Health Law Institute, in partnership with the American Health Law Association (AHLA) and dBase Media, produced a series of public service announcement videos to heighten awareness of the ever-shifting legal landscape in light of COVID-19. The series features Jaharis faculty narratives discussing how health law has rapidly changed in response to the pandemic. Together, these videos offer a deep dive into pressing topics such as the current and future impact of new waivers; how rural and other providers are facing challenges with limited resources, supplies, staffing and capacity issues; and how long-term care facilities may minimize risk to patients and staff.
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PROGRAM NEWS BREMER FUND FOR HEALTH LAW & RACIAL JUSTICE ESTABLISHED
Established through the generosity of Catherine Bremer (JD ’89) and her husband, Dr. Joseph Bremer, the Bremer Fund for Health Law & Racial Justice provides scholarships and funding for externships and fellowships at organizations that address issues of systemic racism and health disparities affecting underrepresented communities.
D E PAUL HEALTH LAW GRADUATE TO RECEIVE PRESTIGIOUS SATCHER HEALTH LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE FELLOWSHIP
In June, Google awarded a $1 million grant to the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, to study the racial impact of COVID-19. The study will collect, analyze and map out data relating to social determinants of health to help inform policy designed to address racial health disparities. The study includes a team of Google engineers, data scientists, as well as law student fellows and interns from both DePaul and the University Nebraska.
CIVIL LITIGATION & HEALTH LAW CLINIC LAUNCHED
The Civil Litigation & Health Law Clinic is an expansion of DePaul Law’s acclaimed Civil Litigation Clinic. It brings a singularly unique approach to training law students interested in both litigation and health law by having them represent clients in both civil litigation claims and claims for Social Security disability benefit claims. Through the representation of clients and through classes dedicated to both the litigation process and substantive areas of civil and health law, students complete the clinic with the intellectual and practical skills that they can use in any civil litigation or health law environment.
HEALTH LAW CURRICULUM DePaul College of Law’s Health Law Program consistently ranks among the nation’s best. The health law curriculum encompasses theoretical and practical courses identified by practitioners as essentials in the field, and the academic program covers all major areas of health law practice, including social, ethical, corporate, regulatory and policy issues.
PROGRAM OPPORTUNITIES Certificates in both Health Law and Health Care Compliance Civil Litigation & Health Law Clinic Compliance Certification Board exam eligibility Externship opportunities with private firms and corporations in health law Journal of Health Care Law JD/LLM in Health Law Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute Health Law Moot Court
Clinical Instructor David Rodriguez has a decade of experience in both corporate and public interest litigation, working at both Sidley Austin and Legal Aid Chicago. He shares DePaul’s philosophy to cultivate in each student a desire to become a lifelong, independent learner, stating: “At the beginning of every semester, in the very first class, I focus first on emphasizing the importance of becoming a free and critical thinker with a heartfelt appreciation of the importance of assuming control over their own intellectual development.” Clinical Adjunct Instructor Amy Marinacci, a supervisory attorney with Legal Aid Chicago since 2006, also teaches the clinic course. She and Professor Rodriguez are of the same mind on the importance of preparation: “Preparation is the cornerstone of becoming a competent attorney. With preparation, a lawyer can present one’s case in not only a competent way, but also a spontaneous and sincere way. At every opportunity, we impress this guiding principle on our clinic students.”
DIGNITY HEALTH AND JAHARIS HEALTH LAW INSTITUTE LAUNCH NEW HEALTH LAW & COMPLIANCE CERTIFICATE Co-developed by the College of Law and Dignity Health—one of the largest health systems in the U.S.—the Health Law & Compliance Certificate Program familiarizes health care professionals with the most significant and applicable concepts and principles in health law and policy. Participants learn to identify and apply legal rules, get to know essential terms and describe the structure of laws relating to American health care, enabling them to spot issues in a complicated and shifting legal and regulatory environment.
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COURSES Course offerings may vary from year to year Administrative Law Antitrust Bioethics & the Law Data Breach Notification Laws Disability Law Elder Law Externship Program Food & Drug Law Health Care Compliance & Regulations Health Care Delivery Systems Health Care: Fraud & Abuse Health Law Moot Court Health Policy & the Law Health Privacy, Cybersecurity & IT Law Insurance Law Journal of Health Care Law Editorial Board Labor Law Legal Clinic I & II: Civil Litigation & Health Law Legal Drafting Medical Malpractice Survey Non-Profit Organizations Privacy Law Public Health Law Risk Management & Patient Safety Senior Research Seminar Sex, Gender & the Law Special Topics in Law The Practice of Health Care Law
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SYMPOSIA AND CONFERENCES JAHARIS SYMPOSIUM ON HEALTH LAW AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: GENETIC JUSTICE: DATA, PRIVACY AND CRIME
This daylong, interdisciplinary symposium, co-hosted by DePaul College of Law’s Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute and Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology (CIPLIT®), went virtual due to COVID-19. The virtual setting created the added benefit of the symposium becoming available to those outside of the Chicago area, and a recording of the symposium is now available for purchase for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit on the Jaharis website. The annual event featured scholars, practitioners and other professionals sharing advances and discussing the ethical components of the fast-changing landscape of genetic research and technology. The symposium offered insights from experts in various sectors, navigating the legal ramifications of innovations in the field of genetics. Panelists addressed issues of distributive and procedural justice in genetics and genomics as they relate to scientific innovation, intellectual property, human subject research and the criminal justice system. (March 2020)
JAHARIS HEALTH CARE COMPLIANCE CONFERENCE
The second annual CCB-approved Health Care Compliance Virtual Conference addressed the key requirements for an effective compliance program and some of the challenges compliance professionals face when conducting education and training, responding to compliance violations, auditing and monitoring, implementing HIPAA protections, and communicating and reporting. Specifically, the conference addressed telehealth, preparedness and the use of new technology for the delivery of health care in the current environment, as well as the changes required in response to the recent pandemic, compliance in the current landscape and how to transition to the anticipated new norm (August 2020).
26TH ANNUAL CLIFFORD SYMPOSIUM ON TORT LAW AND SOCIAL POLICY: THE OPIOID CRISIS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
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At the 26th Annual Clifford Symposium, some of America’s leading experts considered the legal and public health implications of the opioid crisis and our responses to it. The symposium considered the procedural mechanism that has framed our primary response to the crisis— multi-district litigation. Symposium faculty considered some of the legal tools being used or considered to address the problem and those who caused it, especially tort claims and criminal sanctions. The program also examined a range of public health initiatives to assist in the nation’s recovery. (May 2020)
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STUDENT EXPERIENCE
Palak Desai (’21)
STUDENT NEWS Lurie Children’s Hospital hosted several summer externs, and annually starting Fall 2019, it hosted an additional student for an intensive, year-long externship/practicum position. JHLI Summer Scholars, who each received a $5,000 stipend, were placed at: – Advocate Health – AMA Ethics – AMA Science – Hinshaw & Culbertson – Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation – Innovation Associates – R1 RCM – Sharf Banks – Shirley Ryan AbilityLab – Sinai Health System – Walgreens
The e-Pulse Health Law Blog was launched in order to provide a forum for graduates, faculty, staff and students to publish on relevant issues in health care. Thompson Coburn will host a post-graduate fellow for six months with funding through JHLI.
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As a JHLI student fellow, Palak Desai participated in a variety of health law workshops and presentations, which allowed her to develop a broad professional network consisting of faculty, other students and attorneys. These experiences helped prepare her for her future legal career, specifically: “Speaking to faculty, alumni and professionals has helped me narrow down my options, which is very helpful as I enter my final year of law school.” The College of Law’s broad health curriculum prepared Desai for her externships and meetings with potential employers.
“A lot of things covered in the health law classes are relevant to what will be used in my future career, and employers have expressed that it is very beneficial that I already have learned about certain health law concepts in class.” Desai has worked at both plaintiff and defense-side law firms, including Wiedner & McAuliffe, Ltd. and Levin & Perconti, where she analyzed medical records and applied them to legal memos she was tasked with drafting. “It was difficult to translate certain medical information into legal terms, but that was something JHLI helped me with.” Desai continued applying what she learned in a summer position in the Office of General Counsel at Sinai Health System; and in the fall, she will begin working in the legal department of the American Dental Association. Palak views her time as a fellow as crucial to shaping her decision to work in defense-side health law when graduating in 2021. “I would not have been able to do this without the guidance of all of those involved in JHLI.”
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RECENT GRADUATES Sean Sullivan (’20) For Sean Sullivan, JHLI helped shape his law school experience and, ultimately, his legal career. He became a JHLI student fellow during the spring semester of his 1L year and found the year-round programming and opportunities— such as the Health Law Moot Court, Health Law Journal and e-Pulse Blog—valuable student experiences, as well as valuable to his job search. “All of these experiences were made much better by an incredible group of health law students and faculty. Professors Schostok and Epstein work tirelessly to make the Institute’s programming as robust as anything at the law school.” As a staff editor for the Journal of Health Care Law, Sullivan was introduced to the editing and publishing processes of an academic journal. He also sharpened his writing skills and, as a result, was able to secure a clerkship in the Chancery Division of the Cook County Circuit Court under Judge Celia Gamrath. Additionally, his experience on the Health Law Moot Court team gave him valuable practical experience. “Our team competed in a transactional scenario and had to work together to cover a large swath of issues. It was exactly the sort of practical experience that helped direct my job search.” Through JHLI, Sullivan was a summer extern at Baxter International, where he learned what it was like to work in the legal department of a large corporation. He also was a judicial intern at the Circuit Court of County during his 2L year. Both positions allowed him to apply what he learned through JHLI and the health law curriculum, helping him identify what he wanted his career to look like post-graduation. Sullivan believes JHLI was successful in showing the personal side of health law and connecting it back to DePaul’s Vincentian mission of doing good for others.
Elisabeth Volk (’20) To Elisabeth Volk, it was her experiences with JHLI that significantly prepared her for her current health law career. Through her coursework, she learned the fundamentals of health law, and through the out-of-classroom opportunities afforded to her through the Institute, she learned just how dynamic and ever-changing the health law field really is.
“While JHLI instilled in me the importance of learning the foundational structure of health care law through my coursework, it also taught me the importance of seeking out-ofclassroom experiences and learning the law firsthand from legal practitioners, which I did through the JHLI Summer Scholars Program and other externship opportunities.” While a student, Volk participated as a JHLI Summer Scholar at United Benefit Advisors, where she learned about health care compliance from an employee benefits perspective. Here, she saw how crucial it was for legal practitioners to act quickly and efficiently to update their clients. She also worked as a legal extern at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital during her second year. “Both opportunities allowed me to experience the process of ‘in house’ legal work and to sharpen my legal research and writing skills, which is vital to the practice of law. Having these additional opportunities to strengthen my skills definitely prepared me for my current career.” After taking the IL bar exam, she will join the law firm of Thompson Coburn as a fellow in their health care practice group.
“Health law is an impossibly broad topic that touches nearly everyone and yet, despite the complexity, the Health Law Program at DePaul manages to cut through the noise and emphasize that health care involves real people, and we should be mindful of justice, in keeping with our Vincentian Mission.” 20
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ALUMNI Haley Guion (JD ’15)
Nelson Dunlap (JD ’15)
Associate Legal Counsel, Office of the Illinois Senate President,
Chief-of-Staff, Satcher Health Leadership Institute
Springfield, Illinois
Haley Guion was drawn to health care delivery, because she wanted to address the problematic realities of inaccessible, vital care. JHLI and the College of Law’s Health Law Certificate Program provided her the foundation that now anchors her work with the Illinois State Senate. After graduating, Guion began her legal career researching policy proposals that impacted medical education for the American Medical Association and directing the governance of its medical student membership. During her time there, she was most inspired by the stories of medical students who were Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. Later, she transitioned to an opportunity at the Office of the Illinois Senate President, where she now counsels senators on legislation that modernizes life and health insurance policies and addresses a range of public health needs across the State. She led the research efforts and counseled on legislation addressing racial disparities in maternal health, the question of fiduciary duty and pharmacy benefit managers, insulin coverage and insurance coverage for telehealth services. Guion also developed an interest in the overlap between consumer protection and health care delivery and wrote an article on the legal landscape of direct-to-consumer genetic tests, which was published in the June 2020 issue of the Illinois Bar Journal. Guion credits DePaul for instilling in her a deep sense of service to the community and affording her the privilege to connect with many accomplished alumni who helped shape her career. In her spare time, Guion makes it a priority to donate blood and, prior to the pandemic, provide companionship to elderly individuals in hospice.
“ I find health law a fulfilling practice area, because I enjoy contemplating where we can modernize health care access and taking action to advance meaningful solutions.
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During his time in law school, Nelson Dunlap’s involvement with JHLI did more than simply afford him practical health law experiences that would translate to a post-graduation career. More importantly, it opened his eyes to the many career paths that would become available to him as a DePaul Law graduate. Thanks to a number of formative law school experiences where he learned from and worked alongside esteemed health law professors, attorneys and professionals, Dunlap is now able to confidently advocate for health equity and drive health policy reform as the chief-of-staff for the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine. As chief-of-staff, Dunlap is currently overseeing an innovative partnership between Stacher, Google.org Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation that addresses the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minority communities. The project’s ultimate goal is to leverage the technical and data-oriented expertise of these partners to map the trajectory of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the U.S., and to better understand and address entrenched health inequities in disproportionately impacted communities. Once the public-facing data platform housing the outcomes of this partnership is created, Dunlap and a team of legal epidemiologists, fellows and third-year law students will begin the arduous task of analyzing the legal and legislative decisions that have served as barriers to the COVID-19 response and exacerbated inequities in the communities with the highest need. Dunlap credits the faculty and staff of DePaul’s Health Law Program for instilling in him the importance of utilizing the privilege afforded by his degree to push for lasting change.
L AW.DEPAUL.EDU
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JHLI ADVISORY BOARD Erika Adler, JD ‘96, LLM ‘97 Roetzel & Andress
Robert Kane, JD ‘84 Illinois State Medical Society
Catherine Bremer, JD ‘89 Law Offices of Catherine Bremer (retired)
Michelle Kavoosi Independent Law Practice Professional
Hal Bressler Joint Commission (retired) Michael Callahan, JD ‘79 Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP Danielle Capilla, JD ‘08 Alera Group Lauren Edes Advocate Healthcare Camela Gardener, LLM ‘97 SeniorWell John Gavin Healthcare Services BCBS Illinois (retired) Marc Ginsberg, LLM ‘92 UIC John Marshall Law School Susan Hannigan, JD ‘83 Johnson & Bell
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Jeffrey Matthis Loyola Medicine Thomas Mirabile, LLM ‘03 The Law Office of Thomas Keith Mirabile Alane Repa, JD ‘86 North Park University Ahmed Salim, BSC ‘09 IRythm Technologies Katherine Schostok, JD ‘08 Social Security Administration Lise Spacapan, JD ‘84, LLM ‘14 Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Cary Wintroub, JD ‘78 Cary J. Wintroub & Associates LLC