Lois A. Weithorn is a Professor of Law and the Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair. She joined the full-time UC Law SF faculty in 2001. She received the UC Law SF Foundation Faculty Scholarship Award in 2002, and the Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence in 2007. Professor Weithorn received her J.D. from Stanford Law School where she served as President of the Stanford Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. After graduating, she clerked for the Honorable Joseph T. Sneed III of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit.
Professor Weithorn also has a Ph.D. in Psychology (University of Pittsburgh). Her work integrates perspectives in law and the behavioral and health sciences, with special emphasis on legal policies affecting family relationships or vulnerable or underserved groups such as children and persons with mental disorders. Professor Weithorn’s scholarship includes topics such as informed consent, health care decision-making capacity, and children’s participation in treatment decisions; legal responses to parental vaccine refusal; policies affecting youth crossing child welfare, juvenile justice and/or mental health system boundaries; developmental neuroscience and child protection policy reform; legal responses to children’s exposure to domestic violence; and intellectual disability and the death penalty.
