S.J. Quinney College of Law

Celebrating 100 Years of
Legal Education (1913-2013)

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Leslie P. Francis

Leslie Francis's Biography Photo

Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development and Alfred C. Emery Professor of Law

Professor of Philosophy

Leslie P. Francis holds joint appointments as Alfred C. Emery professor of law and professor of philosophy, and adjunct appointments in Family and Preventive Medicine (in the Division of Public Health), Internal Medicine (in the Division of Medical Ethics), and Political Science. She was appointed to the rank of Distinguished Professor in 2009. Professor Francis received a B.A. from Wellesley College, where she graduated with high honors in philosophy and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She received a Ph.D. in philosophy (1974) from the University of Michigan. After joining Utah's philosophy faculty, she received her J.D. from the University of Utah (1981) and served as a law clerk to Judge Abner Mikva on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Appointed to the law faculty in 1982, she teaches and writes extensively in the areas of health law, bioethics, and disability. Professor Francis currently serves as a member of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, where she co-chairs the subcommittee on Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security; and as a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR). Professor Francis has been a member of the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee and of the American Bar Association's Commission on Law and Aging.

In the College of Law, Professor Francis teaches contracts, disability law, health law, and bioethics and the law. In the Department of Philosophy, she teaches bioethics, environmental ethics, and philosophy of law. She is currently leading the College of Law's project on Law, Biosciences, and Health Policy.

Ethics, Law, and Infectious Disease

Margaret P. Battin, Leslie P. Francis, Jay A. Jacobson & Charles Smith, The Patient as Victim and Vector: Bioethics and Infectious Disease, Oxford University Press, 2009

M.P. Battin, Leslie P. Francis, Charles B. Smith, and Jay A. Jacobson, The Patient as Victim and Vector: The Theoretical Challenge of Infectious Disease, in R. Rhodes, A. Silvers, & Leslie P. Francis, Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics, Oxford and New York: Blackwell's, 2006, pp. 269-289

Jay A. Jacobson, M.P. Battin, Jeffrey Botkin, Leslie P. Francis, James Mason, & Charles B. Smith, Vertical Transmission of Infectious Disease and Genetic Disorders, in Marcel Verweij and Angus Dawson, eds., Public Health Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006

Francis, Leslie P., M.P. Battin, J. Botkin, J. Jacobson, C. Smith, Infectious Disease and the Ethics of Research: The Moral Significance of Communicability, in Matti Hayry, Tuija Takala, and Peter Herissone-Kelly, eds. Ethics in Biomedical Research: International Perspectives, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2006

Francis, Leslie P., Battin, Margaret P., Jacobson, Jay, and Charles B. Smith, Syndromic Surveillance and Patients as Victims and Vectors, Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 6(2): 187-195 (2009)

Smith, Charles B., Margaret P. Battin, Leslie P. Francis, & Jay A. Jacobson, Should Rapid Tests for HIV Infection Now Be Mandatory During Pregnancy? Global Differences in Scarcity and a Dilemma of Technological Advance, Developing World Bioethics (2007)

Francis, Leslie P., Margaret P. Battin, Jay A. Jacobson, and Charles B. Smith, The Patient as Victim and Vector: The Significance of Contagious, Infectious Disease for Bioethics, ASBH Exchange 9(1): 1, 4-5 (Winter 2006)

Francis, Leslie P., Margaret P. Battin, Jay A. Jacobson, and Charles Smith, and Jeffrey Botkin, How Infectious Disease Got Left Out - and What This Omission Might Have Meant for Bioethics, Bioethics 19(4): 287-322 (2005)

Smith, Charles B., Battin, M.P. Botkin, J., Francis, L.P. & Jacobson, J., (2004), Are There Characteristics of Infectious Diseases that Raise Ethical Issues? Developing World Bioethics 4:1, pp. 1-16

Environmental Ethics and Law

Leslie P. and John G. Francis, Land Wars: Property, Community and Land Use in an Interconnected World, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003

Francis, Leslie P., Reciprocity and Environmental Obligations, Hofstra Law Review, forthcoming 2009

Francis, Leslie P., Global Systemic Problems and Interconnected Duties, Environmental Ethics 25: 115-128 (2003)

Disability and Law

Americans with Disabilities: Implications for Individuals and Institutions, ed. Leslie Francis and Anita Silvers, Routledge, 2000

Francis, L.P., Understanding Autonomy in Light of Intellectual Disability, Disability and Disadvantage, ed. Kimberley Brownlee and Adam Cureton (Oxford University Press, 2009)

Leslie P. Francis, Discrimination in Medical Practice, in Rosamond Rhodes, Anita Silvers, and Leslie P. Francis, Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics, Oxford and New York: Blackwell's, 2006, pp. 162-180

Francis, Leslie P., Disability, in Frey and Wellman, eds., A Companion to Applied Ethics (Blackwell's 2002)

Francis, Leslie P., and Anita Silvers, Bringing Age Discrimination and Disability Discrimination Together: Achieving Meaningful Access, Marquette Elder Advisor, forthcoming 2009

Silvers, Anita, and Leslie P. Francis, Playing God With Baby Doe: Quality of Life, Sanctity of Life and Unpredictable Life - Standards at Start of Life, Georgia State Law Review, forthcoming 2009

Anitia Silvers and Leslie P. Francis, Thinking About the Good Reconfiguring Liberal Metaphysics (or Not) or People with Cognitive Disabilities, Metaphilosophy 40 pp. 475-498 (2009)

Francis, Leslie P. and Anita Silvers, Debilitating Alexander v. Choate: "Meaningful Access" to Health Care for People with Disabilities, 45 Fordham Urban Law Journal 101 (2008)

Silvers, Anita, and Leslie P. Francis, No Disability Standpoint Here!: Law School Faculties and the Invisibility Problems, University of Pittsburgh Law Review (2008)

Francis, Leslie P. and Anita Silvers, Liberalism and Independently Scripted Accounts of the Good: Meeting the Challenge of Dependent Agency, Social Theory and Practice (Spring 2007): 311-334

Francis, Leslie P. and Anita Silvers, (Mis)framing Schiavo as Discrimination against People with Disabilities, University of Miami Law Review 61: 789-820 (2007)

Silvers, Anita and Leslie P. Francis, A New Start on the Road Not Taken: Driving With Lane to Head Off Disability-Based Denials of Rights, Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 23: 33-94 (2007)

Silvers, Anita and Leslie P. Francis, Justice Through Trust: Disability and the 'Outlier Problem' in Social Contract Theory, Ethics 116: 40-77 (2005)

Francis, Leslie P., Employment and Intellectual Disability, 8 Journal of Gender, Race & Justice 299 (2004)

Privacy

Francis, Leslie P., The Physician-Patient Relationship and a National Health Information Network, Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, forthcoming 2009

Francis, Leslie P., Privacy and Confidentiality: The Importance of Context, Monist 91(1) (January 2008)

Terry, Nicholas P. and Leslie P. Francis, Confidentiality and Electronic Medical Records, 2007 Illinois Law Review 681-735

Biolaw Project

The Biolaw Project is committed to improving the law as it relates to the rapidly evolving areas of health policy, the life sciences, biotechnology, bioethics, and the medical and technological arts. It will achieve this goal through research, education, advocacy, and outreach. Core to the project is developing normatively justified legal responses to the ever changing demands of the biosciences.