Thaddeus Mason Pope

Major Academic Affiliations

• Director, Health Law Institute, Mitchell Hamline School of Law

• Professor of Law, Mitchell Hamline School of Law

• Adjunct Professor, Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology

• Adjunct Associate Professor, Alden March Bioethics Institute, Albany Medical College

• Visiting Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, St. George's University (Grenada, West Indies)

• Affiliate Faculty, University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics

• Visiting Researcher, Brocher Foundation (July 2020)

• Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada McLaughlin-Gallie Visiting Professor (May 2020) 

• John & Marsha Ryan Bioethicist in Residence, Southern Illinois University (April 2015)

Major Professional Positions

• Co-chair, Minnesota POLST Task Force

• Director at Large, American Society of Bioethics & Humanities (ASBH) (2015 to 2018)

• Voting Member, MEDCAC (CMS Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee) (2012 to 2018)

• Executive Committee, Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Law, Medicine, and Health Care (2014 to 2018)

Research & Scholarship

In his scholarship, Pope focuses on four main areas: 

1. Patient rights
2. Informed consent
3. End-of-life medicine
4. Public health ethics

Whether addressing medical futility disputes or smoking bans, Professor Pope is especially concerned with exploring the justifiability of private and public limitations on individual liberty.  He wants to ensure that the treatment patients get matches the treatment patients want.  

Professor Pope has over 200 publications in: law reviews, bar journals, medical journals, nursing journals, bioethics journals, and book chapters. He has been published in:

• New England Journal of Medicine
• JAMA
• Chest
• American Journal of Bioethics
• New York Times
• Los Angeles Times  

Among his other publications, Professor Pope authors or has authored:

• The definitive treatise, The Right to Die: The Law of End-of-Life Decisionmaking (with Meisel and Cerminara)

• Multiple entries for the new Encyclopedia of Bioethics

• A regular "Legal Briefing" for the Journal of Clinical Ethics (over 25 in print)

• A "Law and Ethics" column for The ASCO Post (over 15 in print)

• The Medical Futility Blog, covering legislative, judicial, regulatory, medical, and other developments concerning end-of-life medical treatment conflicts (over 4 million pageviews)

Service & Advocacy

Professor Pope’s engagement with these health law and bioethics issues goes well beyond academic scholarship. He has served as legal consultant on several American Thoracic Society official statements. as well as other professional organization policy statements. And Pope has participated with lawmaking in all three branches of government.

• Judicial:  Pope has argued and testified both as appellate counsel and as expert witness in cutting-edge healthcare litigation in state and federal courts from California to New Jersey. 

• Legislative:  Professor Pope has been invited to testify before both the President’s Council on Bioethics and the Texas House of Representatives.  

• Administrative:  Professor Pope was a voting member of MEDCAC, the Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee. He helped draft MOLST regulations for the state of Delaware, and now co-chairs the Minnesota POLST Task Force.

Legal & Bioethics Experience

Before joining Mitchell Hamline in 2012, Professor Pope taught at the Widener University School of Law from 2007 to 2011, and at the University of Memphis from 2005 to 2007.  

Before joining academia, Pope clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and practiced for seven years as a corporate litigator with Arnold & Porter LLP in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Professor Pope was graduated from Georgetown University, where he received both his JD and a PhD in philosophy and bioethics. He earned his BA (in philosophy) from the University of Pittsburgh with highest honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Expertise

         Health Law            Bioethics                      Patient Rights 

         Clinical Ethics       Torts                             Medical Liability  

         End-of-Life            Informed Consent        Public Health Ethics  

Research Focus

• End-of-Life, especially medical futility conflicts, brain death, and legal obstacles to good end-of-life healthcare

• Informed Consent and the use of certified patient decision aids  to avoid unwanted medical treatment

• Internal Dispute Resolution mechanisms like healthcare ethics committees

• Tort Law, particularly consent and the assumption of risk doctrine

• Public Health Law, particularly the justifiability of limiting substantially voluntary, self-regarding conduct

• Normative Jurisprudence, particularly the justifiability of hard paternalism

Objectives 

    Stimulate legal and policy change to improve public health

     Remove legal obstacles to appropriate medical treatment

     Contribute to the field of health law and bioethics knowledge

Teaching

        Health Quality & Liability               Medical Law at End of Life

        Health Organization & Finance       Bioethics

        Torts                                                 Public Health Law