Charity Scott’s vision and her family’s generosity forge strong foundations for Health Law scholars that will stand the test of time.
A fierce advocate, a visionary, a force of nature. Inspirational, ambitious, brilliant, generous. A lawyer, colleague, a mentor, a teacher, a friend. A community-builder.
These are among the words used by friends, colleagues, and former students to describe the late Professor Emerita Charity Scott, founder of the Center for Law, Health & Society at Georgia State University College of Law. On February 15-16, the center celebrated its 20th anniversary, Scott’s health law legacy, and the newly minted lecture series in her name with a reception and symposium at the College of Law.
“All those who spoke about Charity not only reflected on her creativity, intellect, and drive, but also about her warmth and dedication to helping others. Charity took us to places we didn’t know were possible and left her mark not only at Georgia State Law, but in all the areas she worked,” said Leslie Wolf, Distinguished University Professor, Ben F. Johnson Jr. Chair in Law, and the incoming director of the center.
Scott’s husband, Evans Harrell, accompanied by their adult children Peter Harrell and Constance Harrell Shreckengost and other family members, revealed a generous gift that will endow the annual Charity Scott Lecture Series to honor her life and contributions to the field.
“The investment from Charity’s family will provide stable longevity for the lecture series, strengthening our position as leaders in health law education and inviting collaboration and partnerships beyond academia,” said Cass Joseph, the assistant vice president of development at Georgia State Law.
With this endowment, the College of Law will attract leading scholars in health law, as well as rising stars, bringing their research and expertise directly to Georgia State Law further cementing Scott’s legacy at the College.
The Health Law Program at Georgia State Law
In addition to its 20th anniversary, the Center for Law, Health & Society is also celebrating being ranked No. 1 again among the 2023-2024 Best Law Schools by U.S. News & World Report. The center first achieved a No. 1 ranking in 2022 and has been in the top ten for fifteen years. The health law program’s ranking is the highest ranking not only within the College of Law, but within Georgia State University. The program also regularly receives an A+ from National Jurist’s preLaw Magazine.
Beginning with her single health law course, Scott built the program first with experienced adjuncts practicing health law in the community and later drawing talented faculty from across the country with strategic university collaborations like the Second Century Initiative. The Center faculty tripled from 2004 to 2007, eventually growing to a dozen full-time faculty.
“As the law school’s dean and associate dean during many of those years, I was really blessed to have had a front row view of Charity in action,” said Dean Emeritus Steve Kaminshine. “Her epic abilities to build, to plan and strategize, to hold to her vision and in the end deliver far more than any of us, except her, imagined.”
The faculty conduct research and teach across the broad spectrum of health law topics, such as health care financing and patient protection, human subjects research, reproductive rights and access, biotechnology and innovations in life sciences, legal preparedness for emergencies, health equity, social drivers of health, the history of eugenics, health and human rights, and more.
The health law program has graduated more than 150 health law certificate students since it began in 2013, with 20 more graduating this spring. “We offer a comprehensive slate of courses and externships, an LL.M. concentration in health law, and dual degrees with our partners in public health and health administration,” noted Stacie Kershner (J.D. ’08), deputy director of the center. “Our faculty share Charity’s commitment to teaching and cultivating the next generation of practitioners through experiential learning and interdisciplinary education.”
Doctors in the Hospital
The Health Law Partnership (HeLP) is also celebrating its 20th anniversary. Co-founded in 2004 by Scott and Sylvia Caley (MBA ’86, JD ’89), Clinical Professor Emerita, HeLP is now a nationally and internationally recognized model for other programs.
But when Scott and Sylvia Caley first envisioned a medical-legal partnership in which lawyers and health care professionals would work together to improve health outcomes of their clients/patients, they faced an uphill battle.
As a nurse, Caley understood first-hand that legal issues often exacerbated, or even caused, her patients’ illnesses. “But it took us 14 years to persuade health care executives that having lawyers in the hospital would benefit their patients. We had to convince them that different disciplines working together could achieve what each alone could not,” said Caley, a former student of Scott’s and an attorney with Atlanta Legal Aid Society at the time HeLP was conceived.
Eventually, they convinced Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to collaborate with Georgia State University College of Law and Atlanta Legal Aid Society. Two decades later, HeLP attorneys have offices in each of Children’s hospitals and its outpatient Center for Advanced Pediatrics, working together with health care providers to improve well-being of low-income children and their families, on housing, benefits, guardianship, education, and other cases.
The Health Law Partnership (HeLP) Legal Services Clinic, the educational arm of HeLP, launched in 2007. The HeLP clinic provides law students the opportunity to immerse themselves in hands-on representation of real clients and gain interdisciplinary experience working with medical students and residents, as well as students in social work, public health, and other graduate programs.
Symposium of Scholars
Attended by health scholars from across the U.S., the symposium covered a variety of topics Scott focused on throughout her career: health care reform, the social drivers of health equity in communities, the impact of the law on bioethics, and interdisciplinary teaching and practice in health law.
“We structured this symposium in a way that honors the wide-ranging legacy that Charity leaves behind in terms of the imprint she's had on health law,” said Erin Fuse Brown, the current director of the center and Catherine C. Henson Professor of Law. “We called the symposium ‘Defining the Future of Health Law,’ which sounds broad and ambitious, because Charity was broad and ambitious in her own definition of what health law is and could be.”
Panelists discussed advancements in interdisciplinary and experiential teaching, why and how the law can and should respond to social drivers of health, the role of law in addressing complex bioethics issues, and how the health system could be restructured to improve health. Modeling Scott, the day drew from multiple disciplines and challenged the audience to view problems from different perspectives.
Articles from the symposium will be published in a special edition of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics in summer 2024. The journal was special to Scott who served as a past president of American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics and as a guest editor and regular contributor to the journal.
Legacy
The 20th anniversary of the Center for Law, Health & Society offers a chance to reflect on past and plan for the next twenty years into the future. “Professor Emerita Charity Scott’s historic contributions to health law will echo through her impact on the health law community here in Atlanta and across the country, an archive of scholarship contributed in her name, and in her family’s generous gift,” said Georgia State Law Dean LaVonda Reed.
If you would like to build on the foundation of the Charity Scott Lecture Series, please make a donation here.