Course Planning

A student enrolled in health law courses works not only with unique doctrinal areas of law but also with general areas of law as applied to the largest industry in the U.S. economy and as applied to intensely personal human problems. As such, most of the health law courses involve the application of law to the sometimes atypical demands of the health care setting and so involve the student in advanced study of basic areas of law such as administrative law, constitutional law, torts, and business law.

For students interested in health law, we generally conceptu­alize the School of Law's offerings into several "traditional" patterns that students, and the practice, seem to follow. One area tends to focus on litigation and professional negligence actions. A second focuses on the legal complexities of the business of health care institutions and enterprises. Another area is those health law issues that are mostly regulatory in nature. The areas are not mutually exclusive and, depending upon career goals, students will find it useful to attempt to become somewhat familiar with all areas, while emphasizing one over the other. For example, regulatory health law practice may involve litigation based skills as well as a complex knowledge of fraud and abuse. In-house counsel positions require a general knowledge of provider liability and transactional health care.

The School of Law offers many classes which are applicable to a wide variety of substantive settings, but also have clear relevance to health law or include health law topics. These courses are foundational and important but do not count toward the Certificate in Health Care Law. A good example of such a course is Administrative Law.

In addition, each semester there are several courses that can be viewed as pure "health law" offerings. These classes will be designated as counting toward the health law certificate. Included in this group are courses such as Health Care Law, Bioethics, Transactional Health Care Practice and Health Care Quality.

NOTE: The practice of health law requires a firm legal foundation. In recognition of the importance of a broad legal education, the health law certificate requires only ten credit hours of designated health law courses.

Non dual degree J.D. students are permitted to take up to six hours of graduate coursework toward their J.D. degree outside the Law School. There are many health law related course offerings in other parts of the University. For example, the School of Public Health offers a variety of graduate level courses in areas such as health care organization, health care administration, epidemiology, public health administration and health policy. The Center for Health Care Ethics offers many relevant graduate level courses, including the opportunity to earn the Certificate in Health Care Ethics. Students might consider a course at the School of Business or School of Social Work. Permission is required before enrolling in these courses.