Fall 2025 Health Law and Policy Newsletter

This newsletter showcases program achievements from this year, previews upcoming events, and celebrates the accomplishments of our faculty and students.

Sonia Suter, Co-Director & Founding Director of the Health Law & Policy Program

Barak Richman, Co-Director of the Health Law & Policy Program

Marquisha Johns, Program Director of the Health Law & Policy Program

Hello GW Health Law and Policy Community! As of this past June, I’ve been delighted to serve as your Program Director. I bring both a deep commitment and 8 years of experience in state and federal health policy, public health policy, and advocacy work across the nonprofit sector. I look forward to applying my experience towards continuing the incredible work within the health law and policy program, and growing that work even further. Some of our vision for the future includes expanding student learning opportunities to varied health law and policy careers, building more interdisciplinary partnerships, and deepening connections with stakeholder communities. I am eager to see how we can all join in these efforts. We have many exciting things planned for the year ahead, including expanded programming, so make sure you stay connected with us for more information!

Looking forward to the work ahead,

Marquisha Johns

September 2025

The Health Law & Policy program hosted a Welcome Reception to usher in the start of the new academic year and provide students interested in health law an opportunity to learn about the program and meet health law faculty.

September 2025

The Kahan Fellows hosted the program's annual Health Law Expo! This event helped connect students exploring health law as a career with health law practitioners ranging across private, government, and nonprofit sectors.

May 2025

Health law faculty members, Barak Richman and Laura Richman, collaborated with the Milken Institute School of Public Health to convene a roundtable discussion on Section 1115 Demonstrations. Experts from across the country came together to discuss the challenges ahead for the Medicaid program.

March 2025

The program hosted The Honorable Elizabeth Prelogar, the former U.S. Solicitor General, for a fireside chat with Professor Sonia Suter regarding the intersection of law, advocacy, and litigation. The conversation focused on her role as the United States Solicitor General with a particular emphasis on cases related to public health and health care. She shared war stories about representing the United States in important health law cases like NIFIB v. OSHA, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and Moyle v. United States.

February 2025

Legal scholars, practitioners, and other experts on property law and bodily information explored the legacy of Moore v. UC Regents, a case where the California Supreme Court denied a patient property rights over his cells, and those cells were used to develop a valuable cell line without his knowledge or consent.

Friday, October 10th

GW Law School, Stuart Hall 101

8:30 AM - 3:00 PM

Join GW’s Health Law and Policy Program for a timely, one-day convening of scholars, policymakers, advocates, and industry stakeholders to examine the early implementation of
the Inflation Reduction Act’s drug pricing provisions, and celebrate the anniversary of Medicare Part D.

This program is open to the public. Students are welcome to attend the full program or join specific panels that fit their schedules. Light breakfast and lunch will be provided!

Monday, October 20th

Stuart Hall 201

12:00 PM

Get a head start on spring registration! Come learn about Health Law classes from faculty so you can plan your schedule with confidence!

Monday, November 3rd

Lerner Hall 202

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Curious about how the Food and Drug Administration shapes health law & policy? Join us for the first session in our new guest speaker series, where experts and practitioners will share insights and answer your questions.

Sonia Nath is a GW Alum and Chair of Cooley’s global life sciences and healthcare regulatory practice group, Sonia has deep experience in matters involving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Professor Emily Benfer  has recently published op-eds including More renters are getting lawyers during evictions. It’s changing courts for the better for The Hill (March 2025) and Good Cause Evictions Bill is Right Cause for Health in The Baltimore Sun (May 2025). Professor Benfer was also the lead author of the scholarly article, A Descriptive Analysis of Tenant Right to Counsel Law and Praxis 2017–2024 (2025) and developed a dataset on Tenant Right to Counsel Law and Policy, with the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (2025). Additionally, Professor Benfer served as principal investigator for grants including the Impact of Tenant RTC Laws on Eviction Filings, Case Outcomes, and Settlements (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) and Shadow Courts: Settlements, Civil Probation, and the Lived Experience of Landlord-Tenant Law (The Pew Charitable Trust).
Professor Joan Meier  spoke at the European Conference on Domestic Violence about misinformation in family courts which misleads courts and endangers children. Professor Meier was interviewed for a podcast, Better and Better Psychology, about how protective parents are treated in family courts and children are harmed in September 2025 (episode not yet released). Professor Meier also participated in a panel titled Challenging Assumptions, as part of a day-long webinar Safeguarding Survivors, about the ways that the Hague Abduction Convention harms mothers and children fleeing abuse.
Professor Barak Richman  has recently published several articles including, ERISA and the Failure of Employers to Perform Their Fiduciary Duties: Evidence from a Survey of Health Plan Administrators (Sept. 2025), Medical Staff Bylaws and Shared Governance (July 2025), and Hiding in Plain Sight: ERISA's Cure for the $1.5 Trillion Health Benefits Market (2025). In the media, Professor Richman’s research was featured on ABC News/Spotlight America (August 2025) and he appeared on the Charlotte Talks (Sept. 2025) to discuss Duke Health’s entry into the Charlotte hospital market.
Professor Laura Richman  spoke at the Health Law Professors Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, in June 2025 and at a lecture series on diversity and health in Hamburg, Germany, in May 2025. Professor Richman published a law review paper, The Objectives of Medicaid: The Legal Definition Behind America's Most Important Health Program, in March 2025. Additionally, Professor Richman published a blog for the GW Law Review in July 2025 analyzing Media v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and its impact on healthcare access. 
Professor Sonia Suter has recently published several articles including, Damned If You Do or Damned If You Don’t: The Medical Malpractice Implications of Consumer-Generated Polygenic Scores (2025), Reproductive Care — “Right” Here and “Wrong” There (2025), and Choosing Your "Healthiest" Embryos after Dobbs (2025). She also published an op-ed, Supreme Court Rules that States May Deny People Covered by Medicaid the Freedom to Choose Planned Parenthood as Their Health Care Provider, in June 2025. Professor Suter has had various speaking engagements, including “Unborn Life” and the Law at University of Arizona (Sept. 2025), Situating ART Within a Reproductive Justice Framework in Oñati, Spain (May 2025), State Responses to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the Battle to Secure Reproductive Freedom at University of Baltimore School of Law (May 2025), and Personhood, Patients, Providers, Pills, and Personhood Post-Dobbs at UC Law San Franciso (March 2025). In the media, Professor Suter was a featured expert in the U.S. News article “Experts: ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Threatens Access to Reproductive Health Care” (July 2025) and appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday (September 2025) to discuss the data behind autism and acetaminophen usage during pregnancy.