Renée M. Landers

Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Health and Biomedical Law Concentration and Master of Science in Law Life Sciences Program, Suffolk University Law School

Examiner Club Vice President

Renée M. Landers was President of the Boston Bar Association in 2003-2004, the first woman of color and the first law professor to serve in that position.  She has worked in private practice and served as Deputy General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton Administration. 

Professor Landers served as Chair of the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice of the American Bar Association in 2016 –2017.  In 2022, she is completing a second term as a Public Member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

She is a Trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital and is a former trustee of the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary and New England Donor Services.  In June 2022, she will complete her tenure as chair of the board of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. Recently, she co-chaired the Boston Bar Association’s Task Force on Judicial Independence.  She was a member of the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct and served as Vice Chair from 2009 to 2010.  She served on the task force that drafted the revised Massachusetts Code of Judicial Conduct effective in 2016 and currently is a member of the Committee on Judicial Ethics.  Previously, she was a member of the Supreme Judicial Court’s committees studying gender bias and racial and ethnic bias in the courts.   

An elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance since 2008, she is President of the NASI Board of Directors.  Landers has written on healthcare disparities, the Affordable Care Act, diversity in the legal profession, constitutional law, reproductive health care rights, administrative law, social insurance policy, and privacy, and is a regular commentator on legal developments in constitutional law, health law, and administrative law for media organizations.  

Professor Landers has served as the president of the boards of Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, the Shady Hill School, the Harvard Board of Overseers, and has also served on the board of WGBH and the Board of Overseers of Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.   She is a member of the American Law Institute and has received awards from Radcliffe College, Boston College Law School, Harvard College, the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, the Boston Bar Association, the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Women’s Network, Suffolk University Law School, and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.  In November 2018 she was elected a Fellow of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and in 2021 she was recognized as a Senior Fellow, the Section’s highest honor.  

HIGHLIGHTS:

Recognized with the 2022 Catherine T. Judge Teaching and Service Award, Suffolk University Law School, awarded at All Rise: Uniting to Advance Women and the Future of Law alumnae event on March 23, 2022.

Recent Op Ed in Boston Globe, The Historic Fallacy of Overturning Roe v. Wade, January 27, 2022. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/01/27/opinion/historical-fallacy-overturning-roe-v-wade/

She was a member of the Study Committee examining “A Fairer and More Equitable, Cost-Effective, and Transparent System of Donor Organ Procurement, Allocation, and Distribution” for the National academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Study Committee issued its report, Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System, in February 2022.

 Co-Chair of Task Force on judicial independence, Boston Bar Association, Judicial Independence: Promoting Justice and Maintaining Democracy, August 2019.

Co-Principal Investigator, Report of the National Academy of Social Insurance on Medicare Eligibility, Examining Approaches to Expand Medicare Eligibility:  Key Design Options and Implications, March 2020.

Race and Other Vulnerabilities in Healthcare and Administrative Law, Notice & Comment Blog of the Yale Journal on Regulation, September 2020.