Sharona Hoffman, PhD

Sharona Hoffman joined the faculty in 1999. She is the Edgar A. Hahn Professor of Law, professor of bioethics, and co-director of the law school's Law-Medicine Center. Professor Hoffman served as associate dean for Academic Affairs from 2006–2009. She teaches Health Law courses, Employment Discrimination, and Civil Procedure and was voted First Year Teacher of the Year in 2011, 2012 and 2019. She has won several other distinctions for her teaching and scholarship, including the 2021 Case Western Reserve University Faculty Distinguished Research Award. Dr. Hoffman was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 2017.

Professor Hoffman received her BA from Wellesley College, her JD from Harvard Law School, an LLM in health law from the University of Houston, and an SJD in health law from Case Western Reserve University. Prior to becoming an academic, she was a senior trial attorney at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Houston, a litigation associate at O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, and a judicial clerk for U.S. District Judge Douglas W. Hillman (Western District of Michigan).

In 2013, Professor Hoffman was selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for a scholar-in-residence fellowship in public health law. She has also twice spent a sabbatical semester as a visiting scholar at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2007 and 2014) and was a visiting scholar at Emory University in 2014 as well. During her spring 2022 sabbatical, Professor Hoffman served as a visiting scholar at the National Institutes of Health Bioethics Department.

Professor Hoffman has published over 70 articles and book chapters on health law and civil rights issues. Her areas of focus include health information technology, aging and disability law. Her work has appeared in the Georgetown Law Journal, William & Mary Law Review, Boston College Law Review, New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA, among many other journals. Professor Hoffman was named the 9th most-cited health law scholar in the United States during 2016–2020. She is the author of two books: Aging with a Plan: How a Little Thought Today Can Vastly Improve Your Tomorrow (2d ed., First Hill Books 2022) and Electronic Health Records and Medical Big Data: Law and Policy (Cambridge University Press 2016). Professor Hoffman has lectured throughout the United States and internationally and frequently appears in the media.

More information is available at sharonahoffman.com.

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