Elizabeth Weeks Leonard
Associate Professor of LawSubjects: Torts, Health Law, Public Health Law, Family Health Care Legal Services Clinic
Phone: 785-864-9290 E-mail: eleonard@ku.edu
Profile
Elizabeth Weeks Leonard joined the KU Law faculty in 2004. She is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law, where she was a visiting professor in 2003, teaching Health Care Financing and Public Health Law. Before teaching, she practiced health law with Vinson & Elkins LLP in Houston and served as a law clerk for Judge Jacques L. Wiener Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Chief Justice Thomas R. Phillips of the Supreme Court of Texas. She received her bachelor's degree from Columbia University and worked as a psychiatric social worker in Chicago before attending law school. Leonard teaches the classroom component of KU's medical-legal partnership clinic and coordinates the program's multiple sites and components. She was selected as one of 15 health care leaders for the inaugural year of the Sunflower Foundation Advocacy Fellowship. Leonard also serves as president of the board of directors of the Health Care Access Clinic in Lawrence, Kan.
Representative Publications
"The Public's Right to Health: When Patient Rights Threaten the Commons," 86 Washington University Law Review 1335 (2009); "Failure to Connect: The Massachusetts Plan for Individual Health Insurance," 55 Kansas Law Review 1283 (2007); "After the Catastrophe: Disaster Relief for Hospitals," 85 North Carolina Law Review 223 (2006); "Gauging the Cost of Loopholes: Health Care Pricing and Medicare Regulation in the Post-Enron Era," 40 Wake Forest Law Review 1215 (2005)
Curriculum Vitae with Complete Publications List
Research Interests
Health care financing and regulation, public health law, health care federalism, health care rights.
Education
J.D. 1999, University of Georgia, Editor in Chief, Georgia Law Review, Order of the Coif; B.A. 1993, Columbia University, Latin American Studies and Political Science.
Admitted
Texas, 2000
Career History
Clerk, Judge Jacques L. Wiener, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, 1999-2000; Clerk, Chief Justice Thomas R. Phillips, Supreme Court of Texas, 2000-01; Associate, Vinson & Elkins LLP, Health Industry Group, 2001-03; Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Georgia School of Law, 2003-04; Associate Professor, Kansas since 2004; Visiting Associate Professor, University of the Pacific-McGeorge School of Law, 2005-06.
Member
American Health Lawyers Association; American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics; American Public Health Association; AALS Sections on Law & Medicine and Law & Social Sciences.
