Past Symposia

Wired Minds, Legal Lines: Governing Neurotechnology

March 12, 2026

Each year, the Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute, in collaboration with the College of Law's Center for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology, explores a critical legal issue at the intersection of health law, intellectual property law and information technology.

This year's symposium will examine how neurotechnology is rapidly moving from research labs into real‑world health care, communication tools and consumer technologies. As brain–computer interfaces and related systems evolve, they raise urgent legal and ethical questions involving privacy, consent, equity and intellectual property. These developments challenge long‑standing frameworks and require thoughtful, forward‑looking guidance.

Leading scholars, practitioners and policymakers from across the country will gather to explore how law can keep pace with emerging neurotechnologies. Through conversations spanning criminal law, privacy and data governance, neurorights and ethics, and innovation and competition, participants will consider how to protect individuals while enabling responsible scientific progress.

Francis X. Shen
Professor, Minnesota Law

A pioneer in neurolaw, Professor Francis Shen will offer insights into how advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology are reshaping core legal concepts—from responsibility and fairness to autonomy and cognitive liberty.

Dr. Shen is a Professor of Law and Faculty Member in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, and co-directs the Neurotech Justice Accelerator at Mass General Brigham. He received his JD from Harvard Law School and his PhD from Harvard University.

Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: Existential Challenges for Law and Ethics
March 14, 2024

Each year, the Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute, in collaboration with the College of Law's Center for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology, explores a critical legal issue at the intersection of health law, intellectual property law and information technology.

This year’s program is no exception as we dive deeper into the role and impact of large language model artificial intelligence technologies and the radical changes they are making to medical innovation and practices. This topic lends itself to the interdisciplinary nature of our symposium, as we gather a wide range of academics, legal practitioners and health care professionals to discuss the challenges and opportunities involved with this significant issue.

The Symposium will focus on:

• AI Developments and Medical Applications
• Data and Algorithmic Access, Privacy, Bias, and Discrimination
• Diagnostics, Therapeutics, and Vaccine Discovery and Development
• Ethics of Health Care, Informed Consent, Telemedicine and Liability Concerns
• The Future of Health AI Regulation and the Federal Executive Order

Unplanned Obsolescence: Reproductive Health Care Technology's Response to a Changing Legal Landscape
March 1, 2023

Each year, the Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute, in collaboration with the College of Law's Center for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology (CIPLIT®), explores a critical legal issue at the intersection of health law, intellectual property law and information technology.   Fittingly, this year’s symposium explores the seismic shift in the legal regulation of reproductive technologies and health services in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health.

Our interdisciplinary program brings together academics, legal practitioners and health care professionals to discuss these challenges and opportunities by taking an in-depth look at the wide-ranging legal effects and overall impact these radical changes will have on reproductive health care law going forward. The day will start with a discussion of the nuts and bolts of regulating contraceptive and abortion care, followed by a look at the legal and ethical responsibilities of reproductive medicine providers, and finally, the future of data privacy and research and development in the realm of reproductive health care.

Panel 1: Preempting Pregnancy: Federalism, Medication Abortion and Contraceptive Care

The U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion in Dobbs overturned decades of legal precedent, passing the power to regulate this component of reproductive health care to the states, creating a patchwork of differing laws across the country. In doing so, it generated a multitude of questions, particularly around the rights, responsibilities and liabilities of patients and providers seeking and providing medication, abortion and contraceptive care. Panelists will offer insights on how to make sense of the ongoing challenges and tensions between federal and state regulations, the use of technologies like telehealth and mail order prescriptions, the practical and equitable implications of limiting access to reproductive medicines, and the future of litigation surrounding reproductive care.

Panel 2: Fidelity in the Fertility Forum: Legal and Ethical Challenges in Fertility Medicine

The practice of fertility medicine is one of the primary fields utilizing modern reproductive health care technology. Advances in treatment options over the past decades, as well as jurisprudential changes, have introduced new complications to the ethical conflicts present at the heart of this area of medicine. This interdisciplinary panel will take a closer look at the real world legal and ethical responsibilities facing providers post-Dobbs and how the practice is evolving with new technological breakthroughs.

Featured Speaker: Radhika Rao, Professor of Law, UC College of the Law, San Francisco

The courts’ long history of regulating reproductive health care informs legal, policy and medical efforts to ensure equitable access to this medical care in the future. Professor Rao will discuss the future of reproductive rights following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs through the historic lens of reproductive health care jurisprudence leading up to this moment. Her experiences clerking for Justices Blackmun and Marshall allow her to offer an insider’s perspective on Roe v. Wade’s viability framework and the role it played in structuring our current understanding of how to regulate reproductive technology. Her keynote will draw upon her extensive scholarship in the fields of abortion, assisted reproduction, cloning, stem cell research, genetic privacy, gene patenting and property rights in the human body.

Panel 3: Keeping the Personal Private: Data Privacy in Reproductive Health Care Technology

The proliferation of information technology for tracking, supporting and providing reproductive health treatment raises questions of how to balance the need for technology, especially when it facilitates greater access to care, with the need to protect private health information. Panelists will discuss who has access to this information, the ways in which individuals are unknowingly relinquishing their privacy rights and how third parties are using this data.

Panel 4: Research in the Reproductive Rights Unknown: The Future of Reproductive Research and Development

This interdisciplinary panel will look at how the Dobbs precedent already has affected how clinical research in reproductive health care is conducted and has influenced the development of new technologies. Panelists will discuss the need for inclusive and representative clinical trials within this new framework and the impact the decision has on future growth in this area.

Antitrust and Access to Care: Lessons from Market Consolidation and a Public Health Crisis
March 10, 2022

DePaul Law's Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute and Center for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology annually co-sponsor a symposium highlighting work at the intersection of health law, information technology, and intellectual property.

Access issues in health care are beginning to reach crisis point. Over the past decade, corporate interests have dictated structural changes in health care markets and consumers now face more barriers than ever when it comes to obtaining affordable, quality care. In response, the Biden Administration and the newly formed White House Competition Counsel are promoting more vigorous antitrust enforcement—scrutinizing actions taken by hospitals and drug companies in particular. This year’s symposium will explore how consolidation across health care markets has impacted access to care. Prominent legal scholars, antitrust enforcers, and expert practitioners will address a range of questions:

• How has hospital consolidation affected access to care in rural communities?
• Will COVID-19 drive further consolidation among insurers, providers, or pharmaceutical companies?
• Can retrospective review of previously consummated hospital mergers restore competitiveness in hospital markets?
• What impact will the entry of massive non-health care entities, such as Amazon and Google, have on the digital health services market?
• Is the race to consolidate between insurers and providers an inevitable consequence of the American approach to health care financing?

Addressing Health Disparities: Is Technology the Answer?
April 29, 2021

There are few spaces where rapid changes in technology impact our lives as profoundly as in the realm of healthcare. While advances in healthcare technologies signal immense progress for medicine and science, they also raise significant questions related to who has access to these innovations, and whether the advances are making us healthier as a whole.

COVID-19 has laid bare the structural barriers at the root of health disparities in the U.S. This year’s Jaharis Symposium centers on the premise that while technological advances have the potential to revolutionize the delivery of health care, they also raise significant questions about who has access to these innovations and whether they are advancing the interests of the populations with the greatest needs.

Genetic Justice: Data, Privacy, and Crime

March 12, 2020

Recent discoveries in the field of genetics herald immense innovation for medicine and science. However, they also raise significant questions related to individual privacy, societal uses of the information, and applications in the criminal justice system. For example, how should genetic information be controlled to ensure individual privacy and informed consent for all? What are the individual and societal implications of forensic uses of genetic record matching? How else should genetic information be used within the criminal justice system? Can genomic research ever be truly inclusive and representative of the diversity of our population.

This 2020 interdisciplinary symposium addresses issues of distributive and procedural justice in genetics and genomics, as they relate to scientific innovation, intellectual property, human subjects research and the criminal justice system.

“Democratizing” Medicine in a Data and Tech-​Driven World
March 14, 2019​

This day-long interdisciplinary symposium (CLE credit is available and if you cannot attend in person, there is a livestream option) co-sponsored by the Mary and Michael Jaharis Health Law Institute and the Center for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology (CIPLIT®), addresses the significant and pressing questions of law and policy that will inevitably arise from the adoption of technological and data-driven innovation in medicine. Endeavors such as biohacking, artificial intelligence, consumer genetics, and citizen science initiatives offer the promise of collaboration and accessibility while raising legitimate legal and ethical concerns about ownership, justice, and the law’s ability to keep up with innovation.

Legal, technological, and medical experts from across the country will explore the scientific, ethical, and legal implications of some contemporary examples of do-it-yourself and do-it-together medicine.​

Designer Genes: The Cost of Genetic Information
March 3, 2015

The Jaharis Health Law Institute and DePaul's Journal of Health Care Law, in conjunction with Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science hosted its Annual Health Law Symposium that focused on the discussion surrounding the governmental and private collection of genetic material and information and the legal implications regarding such. In evaluating the topic from a legal standpoint, discussions facilitated concerning informed consent laws, their consequences, and the evolving precedents surrounding this engaging legal issue.

Symposium Videos

• Panel I: What’s In Your Genes: The Science Behind it All
• Panel II: Genes for Any Occasion: The Current Implications of Collecting Genetic Information
• Panel III: Putting Your Genes First: Insuring the Future of Clinical Innovation
• Ethics Presentation: Thinking About Ethics, Physicians and the Law

The Changing Landscape of Pharmaceutical Law and Business

March 14, 2014

Presented by the Jaharis Health Law Institute and DePaul Journal of Health Care Law, the symposium explored the changing landscape of pharmaceutical law and business. The symposium included a combination of keynote addresses and panel discussions on the current problems in the pharmaceutical business, what the pharma field is doing to remedy these issues, and the role of attorneys and business professionals in this new approach. The symposium covered all aspects of the past, present, and future of pharmaceutical development.

​Crime and the Mentally Ill: New Directions for the Law
April 12, 2013

Presented by DePaul's Jaharis Health Law Institute and Journal of Health Care Law, the 2013 Symposium, Crime and the Mentally Ill: New Directions for the Law, explored a broad range of legal issues related to people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system. Expert lecturers and panelists discussed mental health issues in the criminal justice system with a particular focus on legal and policy considerations and they also highlighted different resources and other recent initiatives that have been implemented in Cook County, Illinois.

​Religion and Family Planning under the U.S. Constitution
April 19, 2012

The 2012 symposium, Religion and Family Planning under the U.S. Constitution, explored and debated the constitutional questions implicated by federal legislation in support of family planning, contraception, and abortion programs. The event featured a panel of representatives from a wide range of religions that presented their particular doctrines on various reproductive issues. In addition to the panel, there was a debate that discussed constitutional issues related to repro whether Freedom of Religion or women's right of access to reproductive care should prevail at the points where they conflict.

Social Media and Healthcare: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
April 6, 2011

The 2011 symposium presented by the Health Law Institute and ABA Special Committee on Bioethics and the Law brought together a panel of academic, health, and legal experts to address the use of social media by health care providers, patients and health care delivery systems. Social Media and Healthcare: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly offered attendees a chance to explore topics, including rights and legal issues related to the changing media environment.