DEPARTMENT OF BIOETHICS

Maxwell Mehlman
J.D.

Professor of Bioethics
Professor of Law

Patient-Physician Relationship
Rights of Patients
Genetics, Ethics, and Law
Biomedical Enhancement
Quality Assurance & Malpractice
Rationing
Health Reform

Office Phone: 216-368-3983
e-mail: mjm10@case.edu

Bio

Maxwell J. Mehlman, JD, is Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law and director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.  He received his JD from Yale Law School in 1975 and a BA from Reed College in 1970.  In between college and law school, Prof. Mehlman was a Rhodes Scholar, earning his second bachelor’s degree from Oxford University in 1972.  After law school, he practiced with the Washington D.C. firm of Arnold & Porter, where he specialized in federal regulation of medical technology. He joined the faculty at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1984.  Since 1986, he has been the director of the Law-Medicine Center. The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Prof. Mehlman a significant two-year grant to review, and then address, any public policy gaps in guidelines and ethical differences between therapeutic and enhancement genetic research that involves human subjects.

Recent Publications

Genetics: Ethics , Law and Policy (Second Edition) (2006) (with Lori Andrews and Mark Rothstein)

“Dishonest Medical Mistakes,” 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 1137-1173 (2006).

“Promoting Fairness in the Medical Malpractice System,” in Medical Malpractice and the U.S. Health Care System 137-153 (William M. Sage and Rogan Kersh, eds. Cambridge University Press 2006).

“Doping in Sports and the Use of State Power,” 50 St. Louis University Law Review 15-73 (2006) (with Elizabeth Banger and Matthew Wright).

“The Shame of Medical Malpractice,” 27 Journal of Legal Medicine 17 (2006).

Recent Activities

Prof. Mehlman gave a talk on “Dishonest Medical Mistakes” on October 18, 2006, at a meeting of the Health Law Section of the Cleveland Bar Association

On June 2, 2006, Prof. Mehlman delivered a presentation on protecting human subjects in enhancement research at the Health Law Teachers Meeting of the American Society of Law and Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

On June 1, 2006, Prof. Mehlman delivered a presentation on “Critical Issues in Human Enhancement” to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. 

Prof. Mehlman is a co-investigator on a new NIH grant entitled "Controlling Human Aging:  Alternative Rationales and Implications.” The grant, which is funded by the National Institute of Aging and the National Human Genome Research Institute, runs for 3 years and is for over $900,000.

Prof. Mehlman’s book, Wondergenes: Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society, has been translated into Korean.

Prof. Mehlman has been awarded a Templeton Fellowship for 2008-2009 at Arizona State University as part of a 4-year program funded by the Templeton Foundation entitled “Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, and Technology.” During the year, he will address the social, legal, and political implications of controlled evolution in a series of four workshops, and will summarize his thoughts in a book.

Prof. Mehlman is working with Case Western Reserve University School of Law professor Dale Nance on a project to critique recent proposals to create specialized health courts that would hear malpractice claims.

Prof. Mehlman is a participant in a project funded by the NIH entitled “Indiana and the Legacy of State and Local Eugenics, 1907.” The project aims to produce an edited volume that will, for the first time, compare and tell the detailed and varied history of eugenics in America at the local and state level, with particular attention to the relevance of this history to contemporary issues in human genomics, public health genetics, and reproductive health. Prof. Mehlman will participate in conferences under the grant and write a chapter for the book.

Contact Information

Office Phone: 216-368-3983
e-mail: mjm10@case.edu