TALLAHASSEE—Professor Lois Shepherd, a highly regarded bioethics and health law expert, has been appointed The Florida Bar Health Law Section Professor at the Florida State University College of Law. The Florida Bar Health Law Section endowed the professorship with a $100,000 gift to the law school in 2001. 

“We are delighted to have Professor Shepherd in place as The Florida Bar Health Law Section Professor,” said Health Law Section chair Laurie Levin, who is of counsel at the Orlando office of Baker Hostetler. “As a leading authority on health law issues, she will help us advance our mission of providing a forum for communication and education leading to the improvement and development of the field of health law.” 

An active teacher and scholar on health law, Shepherd is currently working to assure greater cooperation between the law school and Florida State’s medical school. She has expressed great enthusiasm about the appointment, which will bring together the work of the Health Law Section and its members and the law school’s students and faculty. 

"It's a real honor to be named to this professorship and I am looking forward to strengthening the ties between our students and faculty and the practicing health law bar," she said.

Shepherd, whose scholarly output is extensive, has been a law school faculty member since 1993. She recently published a co-authored casebook titled Bioethics and the Law and has published and presented numerous articles related to the law of end-oflife decision-making. An expert on the highly publicized end-of-life decision-making case involving Florida resident Terri Schiavo, she has written several articles and made many presentations regarding the Schiavo case. Her law degree is from Yale University. 

Shepherd is just one of many dynamic law faculty members who have helped Florida State rise in national law school rankings during recent years. For 2007, U.S. News & World Report ranks Florida State in the top tier of American law schools at No. 48 in terms of academic reputation.