Health Care Law

Law + Health Care - Dynamic and In-Demand  

The healthcare sector is set to become the largest and fastest-growing sector in the U.S. and Miami's Health District is a major center for hospitals, clinics, and biotechnology and medical research industries. Miami Law provides expertise for rising leaders in health law and policy with courses, joint degrees and clinical opportunities in the area. That's why Miami Law was a Top 10 School for Health Law in 2020 and received an 'A’ Ranking for Health Law in Pre-Law Magazine, Back to School Issue, fall 2019. Attorneys with this legal background can work in a variety of capacities assisting physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, insurers, employers, and patients as they navigate health care laws and regulations. Innovative and interdisciplinary courses like Miami’s Hospitals, Health Care Services, and Access course is an example of how we lead the field in thinking about health law in the U.S. Take advantage of our offerings in healthcare law to get a meaningful advantage in this evolving arena.

Experiential Learning Opportunities

(Pictured: Professor JoNel Newman with Lisa Gwynn from UM's School of Medicine in "The Road to $4 Million: Health Rights Clinic Secures Life-Saving Benefits")

Employers are looking for experience. Students benefit from Miami Law's clinics and centers that provide hands-on legal training while attending law school.
Health Rights Clinic
Children and Youth Law Clinic

Courses* 

Extracurricular Opportunities

Like-minded law students can hone in on their interests regarding healthcare law in the:
Health Law Association
Child Advocacy Family Law
Alliance Against Human Trafficking
Insightful Mind Initiative
Mindfulness in Law Program

Joint Degrees / Concentrations

“The JD Master’s in public health really allowed me to not only allowed get a legal background but work with indigent communities in Miami….[with a joint degree] you’re perceived as an expert in a specific field and I think that’s very marketable not only to hiring employers but also to their respective clients. I would definitely say a dual degree is the way to go.” 
Becky Greenfield, J.D./M.P.H. ‘15 
Health care Law Associate, Wolfe Pincavage, LLP 
Miami, FL 

As an in-demand field, a joint degree in or course focus on health law are ways to distinguish legal studies. Read “Consider Concentration, Joint Degree for Health Law Career” in U.S. News & World Report.

Miami Law offers the following joint degrees: 

J.D./M.P.H. - Public Health
J.D./M.D. - Medicine
J.D./M.S.Ed. - Law, Community and Social Change

Miami Law also offers the Business Compliance and Sustainability Concentration or Area of Focus and the Concentration - Social Justice & Public Interest in which students can concentrate studies in an area of related interest such as public health.

International Opportunities

Health Rights Clinic Exchange with University of Strathclyde School of Law in Glasgow, Scotland 

Sampling of Past Internships/Externships

Center for Disease Control Public Health Law Program (Atlanta, GA) 
Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC) 
Employee and Labor Relations Department, Jackson Health System 
Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (Washington, DC) 
Legal Services of Greater Miami’s Health and Income Maintenance Unit 
Legal Wellness Institute (Brooklyn, NY) 
Memorial Healthcare System  
New York Legal Assistance Group – Family and Marital Law Department (New York, NY) 
University of Miami Health System 

Faculty 

Anthony Alfieri Professor of Law and Dean's Distinguished Scholar, is the Founder and Director of the Center for Ethics and Public Service, and the Founder of the Historic Black Church Program and Environmental Justice Clinic, at Miami Law.  He teaches civil procedure, ethics, public interest law and leadership, social enterprise, and professional liability and lawyer malpractice. 

Professor Donna Coker focuses on criminal law, gender and inequality. She is a nationally recognized expert in domestic violence law and policy.

Professor Charlton Copeland has written extensively on the Medicaid expansion provision and his research interests are administrative law, federal courts and federalism, comparative constitutional law, and race and the law.

Professor Caroline Mala Corbin’s scholarship focuses on the First Amendment’s speech and religion clauses, particularly their intersection with equality issues. She speaks often on religious opposition to the contraception mandate — the provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring that insurance plans cover contraception. 

Professor Zanita Fenton teaches courses in Family Law, Torts, Race and the Law, Constitutional Law, and seminars on Critical Race Feminism and Women and the Law Stories.

Professor Frances Hill, a Dean’s Distinguished Scholar for the Profession, teaches and writes on tax exempt entities as well as constitutional law issues including campaign finance and spending clause controversies, and on issues arising in the course of implementing the Affordable Care Act.

JoNel Newman teaches professional responsibility, civil procedure and directs the Health Rights Clinic at the University of Miami.  Since 2005 this medical-legal partnership has successfully represented over two thousand indigent clients who receive care in through the Medical School’s Comprehensive AIDS Program, the Pediatric Mobile Clinic and the Public Health Trust’s Community Medical Center. 

Robert Latham, Clinical Instructor and Practitioner-in-Residence of the Children & Youth Law Clinic, teaches students who handle cases involving abused, abandoned and neglected children in a variety of forums, including dependency and family courts, administrative hearings, and federal and appellate courts.

Daniel Magraw teaches Human Rights and the Environment and has lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on a wide variety of international law topics, and he has written books and articles on many international law subjects, including international environmental law, women's human rights, the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, international trade and the environment, sustainable development, accountability in international dispute settlement, and philosophy and environmental protection. 

Bernard Perlmutter, Professor of Law & Co-Director, Children & Youth Law Clinic, teaches and supervises second- and third-year law students who handle cases involving abused, abandoned and neglected children and adolescents in a variety of legal proceedings, including dependency and foster care, public benefits, health care, mental health, disability, education and immigration cases, in addition to appellate, legislative and administrative advocacy and law reform litigation.

Gabriel Scheffler works primarily in the areas of health law and policy, administrative law, and occupational regulation.

Professor Rebecca Sharpless, Director of Miami Law’s Immigration Clinic researches and writes in the areas of progressive lawyering, feminist theory, and the intersection of immigration and criminal law.

Susan Stefan, has taught courses on mental health law and is one of the country's most highly regarded experts in mental disability law.

Kele Stewart is Dean of Experiential Learning, Professor of Clinical Education and Co-Director of the University of Miami School of Law Children & Youth Law Clinic. In the clinic, she supervises students who handle cases involving abused, abandoned and neglected children.  She also teaches courses on family and juvenile law and legal practice.  Her scholarship is in the areas of child welfare, children’s rights and clinical education. 

Melissa Swain is Assistant Director of the Health Rights Clinic. Prior to that she was the Public Benefits Staff Attorney at Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami.

Craig Trocino, Director of the Innocence Clinic teaches classes in post-conviction litigation and federal sentencing. His areas of concentration are in appellate practice and post-conviction litigation and he maintains research interests in criminal law, habeas corpus and appellate practice.

*Lists courses currently or recently offered in this area, but this list is not exhaustive nor does it set out a path of study.