University of Georgia
225 New College
Athens, GA 30602
United States
B.A., Columbia University
J.D., University of Georgia
Torts
The Law of American Health Care
Health Care Financing & Regulation
Health Care Fraud & Abuse
Elizabeth Weeks joined the University of Georgia School of Law faculty in 2011. She presently serves as the university's associate provost for faculty affairs and holds the Charles H. Kirbo Chair in Law. Her teaching and research interests include torts, health law, health care financing and regulation, and public health law. From 2018 to 2020, she served as the law school's associate dean for faculty development. Additionally, she was awarded an SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Fellowship for 2021-22, selected for the University System of Georgia Executive Leadership Institute for 2022-23 and elected to the American Law Institute in 2023.
Prior to coming to UGA, Weeks served on the faculty at the University of Kansas School of Law. During her time there, she was honored with the Howard M. and Susan Immel Award for Teaching Excellence and with the Meredith Docking Faculty Scholar Award, a university-wide honor for faculty who have distinguished themselves early in their careers. Additionally, she served as a visiting professor at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law and the UGA School of Law.
Her scholarship includes the book Healthism: Health Status Discrimination and the Law (with J. Roberts) (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and a health law casebook, The Law of American Health Care (with N. Huberfield, M. Lawrence and K. Outterson), now in its third edition. She has also published numerous articles, including pieces in the Boston University Law Review, the Hofstra Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, the Washington University Law Review, the Georgia Law Review and the North Carolina Law Review. She was recognized as one of four emerging health law scholars nationwide by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics with its Health Law Scholars Award in 2005. Weeks has also served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Law, Medicine, and Health Care, and she currently serves as co-editor of the Health Law Section of the online journal Jotwell.
Before entering academe, Weeks worked as an associate in the Health Industry Group at Vinson & Elkins in Houston. She also served as a judicial clerk for Judge Jacques L. Wiener Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and for Chief Justice Thomas R. Phillips of the Supreme Court of Texas.
Weeks earned her bachelor's degree from Columbia University and her law degree summa cum laude from UGA, where she was on the Jessup Moot Court Team, editor-in-chief of the Georgia Law Review and inducted into the Order of the Coif. Before returning to her hometown of Athens for law school, Weeks was a psychiatric social worker in Chicago.
ARTICLES
One Child Town: The Health Care Exceptionalism Case Against Agglomeration Economies, 2021 Utah L. Rev. 319 (2021).
Private Insurance Limits and Responses, in Assessing Legal Responses to COVID-19 (Public Health Watch, 2020).
Designing Policy Solutions to Build a Healthier Rural America, 48 J. L. Med. & Ethics 491 (2020) (with S. Vohra, C. Pointer, T. Albers & A. Patel).
Healthism in Tort Law, 12 J. Tort L. 81 (2019).
Financial Impact of the Opioid Crisis on Local Government: Quantifying Costs for Litigation and Policymaking, 67 U. Kan. L. Rev. 1061 (2019) (with P. Sanford).
Medicalization of Rural Poverty: Challenges for Access, 46 J.L. Med. & Ethics 651 (2018).
Stigmatizing the Unhealthy, 45 J.L. Med. & Ethics 484 (2017) (with J.L. Roberts).
Teaching the Law of American Health Care, 61 St. Louis U. L.J. 401 (2017) (with N. Huberfeld & K. Outterson).
What is (and isn't) Healthism?, 50 Ga L. Rev. 833 (2016) (with J. Roberts).
Best Practices for a State Alzheimer's Disease Registry: Lessons from Georgia, 17 Minn. J. L. Sci. & Tech. 221 (2016) (with R. Bu & A. Brown).
The Fragility of the Affordable Care Act's Universal Coverage Strategy, 46 Univ. Tol. L. Rev. 559 (2015).
Crafting a Narrative for the Red State Option, 102 Ky. L.J. 381 (2014).
Death Panels and the Rhetoric of Rationing,13 Nev. L.J 872 (2013).
Plunging Into Endless Difficulties: Medicaid and Coercion in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 93 B.U. L. Rev. 1 (2013) (with N. Huberfeld and K. Outterson).
Employers United: An Empirical Analysis of Corporate Political Speech in the Wake of the Affordable Care Act, 38 J Corp. L. 217 (2013).
Affordable Care Act Litigation: The Standing Paradox, 38 Am. J.L. & Med. 410 (2012).
The Rhetoric Hits the Road: State Challenges to the Affordable Care Act Implementation, 46 U. Rich. L. Rev. 781 (2012).
Can You Really Keep Your Health Plan? The Limits of Grandfathering Under the Affordable Care Act, 36 J. Corp. L. 753 (2011).
Rhetorical Federalism: The Value of State-Based Dissent to Federal Health Reform, 39 Hofstra L. Rev. 111 (2010).
State Constitutionalism and the Right to Health Care, 12 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1325 (2010).
The Public's Right to Health: When Patient Rights Threaten the Commons, 86 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1335 (2009).
Cooperative Federalism and Health Care Reform: The Medicare Part D "Clawback" Example, 1 St. Louis Univ .J. Health L. & Pol'y 79 (2007).
Failure to Connect: The Massachusetts Plan for individual Health Insurance, 55 Kan L. Rev. 1283 (2007).
Beyond Compensation: Using Torts to Promote Public Health, 10 J. Health Care L. & Pol'y 27 (2007).
Lessons from Katrina: Response, Recovery, and the Public Health Infrastructure, 10 Depaul J. Health Care L. 251 (2007).
After the Catastrophe: Disaster Relief for Hospitals, 85 N.C. L. Rev. 223 - 300 (2006).
Gauging the Cost of Loopholes: Health Care Pricing and Medicare Regulation in the Post-Enron Era, 40 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1215 (2005).
The New Economic Credentialing: Protecting Hospitals from Competition by Medical Staff Members, 65 J. Health L. 247 (2003).
BOOKS
Healthism: Health Status Discrimination and the Law (Cambridge University Press, 2018) (with J. Roberts).
The Law of American Health Care, (Wolters Kluwer, 2d ed., 2018) (with N. Huberfeld and K. Outterson).
The Law of American Health Care (Aspen/Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2016) (with N. Huberfeld & K. Outterson).
BOOK CHAPTERS
Private Insurance Limits and Responses, in Assessing Legal Responses to COVID-19. Boston: Public Health Law Watch (Scott Burris, Sarah de Guia, Lance Gable, Donna Levin, Wendy E. Parmet, & Nicolas P. Terry eds., 2020).
States' Rights: Point/Counterpoint, in Debates on U.S. Health Care Reform (Sage Publications, Wendy E. Parmet, ed., 2013).
Medical-Legal Partnership: Three Voices from the Law School Clinic, in Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching: A Critical Reader (Carolina Academic Press, 2011) (with MaryBeth Musumeci & Brutrinia D. Arellano).
Tort Litigation for the Public's Health, in Reconsidering Law and Policy Debates: A Public Health Perspective (Cambridge Univ. Press, John G. Culhane, ed., 2010).
Beyond Compensation: Using Torts to Promote Public Health, in Public Health: Enforcement and Law (Icfai Univ. Press, A. Sabitha ed., 2008).
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
A Response to Beyond Separation: Professor Copeland's Ambitious Proposal for "Integrative" Federalism, 15 U. Pa. J. Con. L. Heightened Scrutiny 29 (2013).
New Deal Lessons for the Affordable Care Act: The General Welfare Clause, 14 U. Pa. J. Con. L. Heightened Scrutiny 5 (2012).
Rhetorical Federalism: The Role of State Resistance in Health Care Decisionmaking, J.L. Med. & Ethics 73 (2011) (symposium on Using Law, Policy, and Research to Improve the Public's Health).
What I Talk About When I Talk about Health Law, 18 Annals Health L. 9 (2010) (special edition commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy, Loyola University Chicago School of Law).
Right to Experimental Treatment: FDA New Drug Approval, Constitutional Rights, and the Public's Health, 37 J.L. Med. & Ethics 269 (2009) (symposium on Pharmaceutical Innovation: Law & the Public's Health).
Teaching Sicko, 37 J.L. Med. & Ethics 139 (2009).
Loopholes: Opportunity, Responsibility, or Liability?, 35 J.L. Med. & Ethics 320 (2007).
Is It Worth the Trouble? The New Policy on Dissemination of Information on Off-Label Use Under the Food and Drug Modernization Act, 54 Food & Drug L.J. 645 (1999).
Note, The Newly Found "Compassion" for Sexually Violent Predators: Civil Commitment and the Right to Treatment in the Wake of Kansas v. Hendricks, 32 Ga. L. Rev. 1261 (1998).
SELECTED PROCEEDINGS
Introduction, Symposium on The Future of Global Health Governance; Panel Moderator, The Role of Federal Governments in Pandemics, University of Georgia School of Law, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, Athens, GA, Jan. 25, 2021
Co-Editor, Jotwell (Journal of Things We Like (Lots)), Health Law Section, 2012 - present (with co-editor Carl Coleman).
Program Chair and Moderator, Panel on American Exceptionalism: Health Reform and the Persistence of Employer-Based Benefits, Co-sponsored by the Sections on Law, Medicine & Health Care, and Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation, Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, Jan. 5, 2013
Invited Reader/Mentor, Health Law Scholars Program, Saint Louis University School of Law, Center for Health Law Studies, St. Louis, MO, Sept. 14 - 16, 2012
Moderator, Opening Plenary Session, The Future of the Affordable Care Act - Looking Beyond the Supreme Court Decision, Health Law Professors Conference, Arizona State University School of Law, Tempe, AZ, June 8, 2012
Invited Guest Editor, Symposium on Public Health Reform: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Implications for the Public's Health, 39 J.L. Med. & Ethics 312 (2011).
Faculty Convenor, Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy Symposium: The Role of States in Federal Health Care Reform, University of Kansas School of Law, Lawrence, KS, February 11, 2011.
Faculty Convenor, Kansas Law Review Symposium: The Massachusetts Plan and the Future of Universal Coverage, University of Kansas School of Law, Lawrence, KS, Nov. 10, 2006.
Counsel of Record, Florida v. U.S. Dep't of HHS, No. 11-400, In the Supreme Court of the United States, Brief of Amici Curiae Health Law & Policy Scholars and Prescription Policy Choices in Support Of Respondents on the Constitutional Validity of the Medicaid Expansion, filed Feb. 17, 2012
Signatory, U.S. Dep't of HHS v. Florida, No. 11-398, In the Supreme Court of the United States, Brief of 104 Health Law Professors as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners (Minimum Coverage Provision), filed Jan. 13, 2012
Counsel of Record States of Texas, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, and New Jersey v. Michael Leavitt, No. 135, Original, In the Supreme Court of the United States, Brief of Professors and Practitioners of Health Law as Amici Curiae in Support of Plaintiffs, cert. denied, June 19, 2006