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Distinguished Speaker Series for 2005-2006 The Center for Health Law Studies is pleased to announce its Distinguished Speaker Series for 2005-2006. As one of the leading centers for the teaching and study of the intersection of health care, law and policy, the Center is proud to welcome five distinguished individuals who make significant contributions to the development of Health Law and Policy. These leading scholars will share their insights with our students and faculty on a variety of topics during the coming academic year.
Catherine Hanssens Ms. Hanssens is the founding director of the Center for HIV Law and Policy, an incubator project of the National Center for Civic Innovation. She has been active in HIV legal and policy issues since 1984 and served as AIDS Project Director at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund until 2005. At Lambda, Hanssens lead the development of HIV litigation and policy work, and was lead attorney on all of Lambda’s briefing on U.S. Supreme Court cases affecting the Americans with Disabilities Act and people with HIV. Hanssens also worked with the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, where she created and managed a model on site legal assistance program for single parents with AIDS in Philadelphia-area hospitals and clinics that brought together legal, medical, and social services. While working for the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate in the 1980's, she successfully litigated the state’s first case addressing involuntary HIV testing, a system-wide challenge to segregation and treatment of prisoners with HIV, and the only federal appeals court decision recognizing the right of incarcerated women to funded elective abortions. She also has been a visiting clinical professor at Rutgers University Law School-Newark and regularly writes and conducts trainings on HIV legal and policy issues.
Professor Jacobi is Associate Director of the Seton Hall Health Law & Policy Program and the Seton Hall Institute of Law & Mental Health. Professor Jacobi’s research interests include disability rights, health access and finance, public health, and mental health. His recent and current scholarly projects include examining the obligations of government to provide services to people with serious mental illness, the clash of disability rights and public health interests, and the prospects and social effects of “consumer-driven” health insurance models on health costs and rights of access for the poor and people with disabilities. Professor Jacobi spent five years working for the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate as Special Assistant to the Commissioner, where he worked on health, civil rights, and disability issues through litigation and advocacy in legislatures and regulatory agencies. He then became a Gibbons Fellow at the law firm of Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, where he pursued health, prisoners’ rights, and disability issues. He serves on the Governor’s Task Force on Mental Health, the Board of Advisors of the New Jersey Office of Child Advocacy, and the New Jersey Olmstead Advisory Council on disability rights.
Mr. Azar is General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He was nominated by President Bush to fill this position in June 2001 and won unanimous Senate confirmation. As HHS General Counsel, Azar serves as chief advisor to the Secretary on all legal matters concerning the department. He oversees a staff of 400 attorneys providing legal services and advice to other officials and agencies throughout HHS. Prior to joining HHS, Mr. Azar was a partner with the firm Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in litigation and appellate practice involving white collar criminal defense and internal investigations, congressional investigations, government ethics, administrative law and employment counseling. Azar also served as an Associate Independent Counsel during the first two years of the Whitewater investigation under Judge Kenneth Starr. Prior to that, Azar was an associate at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., where he was involved in litigation and appellate matters. After law school, Mr. Azar clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Dr. Bloche is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches and writes on U.S. and international health law and policy. His work has appeared in medical and health policy journals, law reviews, books, newspapers, and on-line media. Dr. Bloche received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research for 1997-2000 to support his research and writing on the legal and regulatory governance of managed care organizations, and he edited and contributed to The Privatization of Health Care Reform: Legal and Regulatory Perspectives (Oxford Univ. Press, 2003). Dr. Bloche is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care and the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also serves on the advisory boards of several journals and non-profit organizations. Dr. Bloche has been a member of the board of Physicians for Human Rights and a consultant to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (on human rights in the health sector), the Federal Judicial Center, the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and other private and public bodies.
Dr. Jay Wolfson is the Director of the Florida Health Information Center at the University of South Florida College of Public Health. His research interests include various aspects of health and the workplace, including the costs, quality, and outcomes associated with workers compensation and employee health benefits programs. He studies utilization and cost trends experienced by various employee/beneficiary populations in the public and private sectors in order to establish data bases that allow for the design and implementation of cost management and health status improvement systems. As Director of the Florida Health Information Center, Dr. Wolfson is responsible for reporting to the Florida Legislature on a broad panopoly of health policy issues. He has evaluated aspects of Florida's distinctive mandatory managed care workers compensation statutes for the state of Florida. He has also conducted numerous financial and legal evaluations and assessments of major health systems, including the Florida Medicaid system, Adult Congregate Living Systems in Florida, the financial health and regulatory policies affecting Florida's Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO), full service school programs, school-based drug intervention programs, and the readiness of health care organizations to respond to disasters, such as hurricanes. Dr. Wolfson combines technical financial analysis with legal and policy analysis to address financial policy issues in health care. Dr. Wolfson also directs a major, nationally funded, multiple county family AIDS system of care. This project coordinates the clinical and social service efforts of more than 80 public and private agencies to create a community-based network of family oriented, case-managed services. Dr. Wolfson's research interests also include the study of factors influencing physician and hospital organization and operation, with an emphasis on the legal and financial issues that affect these entities.
Distinguished Speaker Series |
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