Sidney D. Watson, J.D.
Director, Center for Health Law Studies
Jane and Bruce Robert Professor
sidney.watson@slu.edu

Professor Watson is the director of SLU LAW's Center for Health Law Studies, the nation's premier health law program. She is a specialist in health law and health care access for the poor. She has spent her legal career advocating on behalf of low-income people, both as a legal services lawyer and as a law professor.

Currently, Professor Watson is advocating for better access to quality, affordable health insurance and health care by serving as policy and legal advisor for a statewide coalition of grassroots consumer health advocates. She has received funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health to support this work and the school’s Grassroots Health Law, Policy and Advocacy course that allows students to do grassroots health policy work on behalf of consumers.

Professor Watson is a frequent speaker to consumer, disabilities rights and children’s groups about the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and access to care. She has written more than 50 law review and other scholarly articles on racial and ethnic disparities in health care, health reform, Medicaid, and health care for those who are homeless. She is editor of the book, Representing the Poor and Homeless: Innovations in Advocacy. She also authored the book, An Advocate’s Guide to Missouri MC+/Medicaid for People with Disabilities and three editions of the book, A Georgia Advocate’s Guide to Health Care.

Amy Sanders, J.D.
Associate Director
Instructor
amy.sanders@slu.edu

Kathleen Casey, J.D.
Assistant Professor of Legal Research
kathleen.casey@slu.edu

Professor Casey joined SLU LAW in 1991 as a law librarian. She received her B.A. and J.D. with a certificate in health law from Saint Louis University and her M.A.L.S. from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Prior to joining SLU LAW she managed a theological library.

Robert Gatter, J.D. 
Professor
robert.gatter@slu.edu

Professor Gatter has expertise in a variety of health law topics including public health law, informed consent law, end-of-life decisions, conflicts of interest, and theoretical descriptions of health law. His work has been published by Emory Law Journal, Boston University Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Wake Forest Law Review and others. Additionally, he has organized symposia on “Pandemic Preparedness” and on “Dual-Use Research Regulation” that were each published as issues of the Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law and Policy. Prof. Gatter served as the director of the Center for Health Law Studies from 2017 to 2019 and as co-director from 2010 to 2017.

Elizabeth Pendo, J.D.
Joseph J. Simeone Professor of Law
elizabeth.pendo@slu.edu

Professor Pendo is a nationally recognized expert in disability law and health care law. Her scholarship focuses on the difference disability makes in places in our society such as the health care system and the workplace, with a particular interest in legal and social meanings of disability. She published a series of articles exposing inaccessible medical equipment as a barrier to care, including Reducing Disparities through Health Care Reform: Disability and Accessible Medical Equipment, 4 Utah L. Rev. 1057 (2010) and Disability, Equipment Barriers and Women’s Health: Using the ADA to Provide Meaningful Access, 2 St. Louis Univ. J. Health L. & Pol’y 15 (2008). Other projects include civil rights and health care reform approaches to health disparities for people with disabilities; models of disability and their impact on health care; public right-of-way and accessibility issues in the City of Saint Louis; and genetic testing in the workplace, and its intersections with classifications based on gender, race, class and disability.

Ana Santos Rutschman, J.D.
Assistant Professor
ana.rutschman@slu.edu

Professor Rutschman teaches and writes in the areas of health law, intellectual property, innovation in the life sciences, and law and technology.

She has published and presented widely on topics related to innovation in biotechnologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, telemedicine and e-health. In 2015-16, she consulted for the World Health Organization on the development of the Ebola and Zika vaccines. In 2017, she was named a Bio IP Scholar by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, and in 2018 she was named a Health Law Scholar by the same institution.

Ruqaiijah Yearby, J.D.
Professor
ruqaiijah.yearby@slu.edu

Professor Yearby is a specialist in racial disparities in health care, the political economy of health care, and social justice in medical research. She has dedicated her career to improving the lives of vulnerable populations by addressing the lack of equal access to quality health care.

Through her research and work with community groups, Professor Yearby advocates for equal access to quality health care and fair wages for racial and ethnic minorities, women, and the poor. Using empirical data, her research explores the ways in which inequities in society and the health care delivery system prevent minorities, women, and the economically disadvantaged from attaining equal access to quality health care, resulting in increased morbidity and mortality for minorities, women, and the economically disadvantaged. She serves as a Research Consultant and Board Member for the Investigating Conceptions of Health Equity and Barriers to Making Health a Shared Value, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant and was a Steering committee member for the Healthy Improvement Partnership for Cuyahoga County Health Department in Ohio.

Malcom J. Harkins III, J.D.
Professor of Practice
malcolm.harkins@slu.edu 

Professor Mal Harkins supervises the Center's Semester in D.C. program and retired as partner at Proskauer Rose LLP.

Cheryl Cooper
Program Coordinator
cheryl.cooper@slu.edu 

Jesse A. Goldner, J.D.
John D. Valentine Professor of Law Emeritus
jesse.goldner@slu.edu

Protecting the rights and welfare of research participants has been Professor Jesse Goldner’s mission for more than 25 years. An author and frequent speaker in academic and public settings, Prof. Goldner’s research initially focused on family law, law and psychiatry and various other law and medicine topics. Most recently he has worked with issues related to the law and ethics of research on human subjects.

Torn between psychology and law, Prof. Goldner decided to pursue degrees in both fields — his A.B. in political science and M.A. in psychology are from Columbia University and his J.D. is from Harvard Law School. Professor Goldner joined the faculty at SLU LAW in 1973 and over the next decade directed much of his time to developing the School's civil and criminal clinical programs. Thereafter, he became the co-founder of the Center for Health Law Studies, which he directed for 12 years

Thomas L. Greaney, J.D.
Chester A. Myers Professor of Law Emeritus
thomas.greaney@slu.edu 

A nationally recognized expert on health care and antitrust law, Professor Thomas (Tim) Greaney has spent the last two decades examining the evolution of the health care industry and is a vocal advocate for reforming the health care system and protecting consumers. He also has a strong interest in comparative antitrust law, having been a Fulbright Scholar in Brussels and a visiting lecturer at several European law schools.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Greaney began his career as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill and as a law clerk with the Federal Communications Commission. He then moved on to the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice where he was a trial attorney and became the assistant chief in charge of antitrust matters in health care. His career at Justice spanned ten years and involved him in civil and criminal antitrust litigation in health care, banking, communications and other regulated industries as well as policy formulation and legislative matters.

Sandra H. Johnson, J.D.
Professor Emerita
sandra.johnson@slu.edu

Sandra H. Johnson is the co-author of the casebook Health Law: Cases, Materials and Problems, now in its seventh edition, which has been used in more than 150 universities. The casebook and its companion treatise have been cited more than 500 times in scholarly articles and judicial opinions, including several times by the U.S. Supreme Court. Johnson has also authored numerous articles in health law and bioethics.