HLS Gets $10M for Health Program

Harvard Law School will delve into the legal gray areas of health care, bioethics, and biotechnology with the launch of a new $10 million center dedicated to law and health policy, the school announced yesterday.

The new Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics will focus on the legal matters associated with advancements in science and technology.

“These are some places where law is changing rapidly and where there are a great many unsolved and very important questions,” Law School Dean Elena Kagan said. “This center will really give us the resources to address these issues and to make a positive contribution to the public debate.”

The school received a $10 million joint donation for the project from the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation and lawyer Joseph H. Flom, a 1948 graduate of the Law School.

Einer R. Elhauge ’82, the faculty director of the Petrie-Flom Center, said that the new research program will include study in a broad range of legal fields with an emphasis on health care.

“It’s clear that technology has caused a lot of problems now with health care law and that the new technologies of the future are going to create some new issues,” said Elhauge, who is also the Petrie professor of law.

Elhauge added that those issues may include the legal implications of parents choosing to genetically modify their offspring, the inheritance rights of babies born to surrogate mothers, and the causes of disorganization in hospital care.

But Elhauge emphasized that the center will take an interdisciplinary approach to these issues, exploring the topics from sociological, philosophical, political, and economic angles. He added that the center will collaborate with professors at the School of Public Health, Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Medical School.

A core group of six professors will work at the center, including Elhauge and Law School professors William W. Fisher, Martha L. Minow, Charles R. Nesson ’60, and Alan A. Stone ’50.

Bass Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel, who currently teaches a course on ethics and biotechnology for Law School and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students, will also participate in research activities at the center.

“At a time when ethics and law are struggling to keep pace with advances in biotechnology, the center offers an exciting opportunity for new thinking at the crossroads of disciplines,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Sandel added that he may attempt to build a connection between the center and the program on ethics, science, and society that he directs at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

At the core of the center’s work will be a research fellowship program, which will provide law and graduate students, mid-career scholars, and professionals with a $60,000 stipend to conduct research for two years. The center will also fund a group of fellowships for Law School and graduate students to work at the center for an academic year or during the summer.

Law School student Daniel B. Vorhaus, co-president of the Ethics, Law and Biotechnology Society, said he views the creation of the center as an opportunity to “legitimize” an area of law that he said has been neglected in academia. Last summer, Vorhaus worked two jobs to pursue his interests in bioethics: one at a traditional law firm and the other as a research assistant for a bioethicist.

“This is a really strong vote of confidence for this kind of career path,” he said.

The Petrie-Flom Center will also fund research projects, workshops, conferences, and possibly an academic journal focusing on health law policy and bioethics, Elhauge said. But Elhauge also said the center would need to look beyond its $10 million gift.

“Frankly, I expect we need to raise some more money to be more ambitious,” he said.

Flom, who has spent his career as a mergers and acquisition lawyer and who has helped finance Harvard’s human rights programs, said he would not be surprised if other schools around the country decided to duplicate the Harvard center.

“I can’t think of a place that’s got greater ability to bring together the minds of many disciplines that will focus on this,” he said. “I’m as excited as the next person to see what this will amount to.”

In addition to the six professors, Barbara A. Fain will serve as the center’s executive director and a board made up of leaders in health care, academics, and lawmaking will advise the center.

—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.