Biography

Professor Coleman received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he served as Supervising Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also holds an A.M. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a B.S.F.S., cum laude, from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. After law school, Professor Coleman served as law clerk to Chief Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then worked as a litigation associate at Leventhal Slade & Krantz in New York City. In 1993, Professor Coleman was appointed Counsel to the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, a nationally recognized interdisciplinary commission with a mandate to recommend public policy on bioethical issues. He was made Executive Director of the Task Force in 1995.

During the 2006-2007 academic year, Professor Coleman served as Bioethics and Law Adviser at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was one of the drafters of the WHO report, Ethical Considerations in Preparing for a Public Health Response to Pandemic Influenza and contributed to a WHO project on strengthening research ethics committees in Western and Central Africa.  He continues to work with WHO as a consultant on projects related to ethics and public health.

Professor Coleman is a member of the steering committee of the Family Decisions Coalition, a group of professional, consumer, and civic organizations advocating for legislation in New York State that would enable close relatives and close friends to make medical decisions for patients who lack decision-making capacity.  He has also served as a member of the institutional review boards at Seton Hall University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and as co-chair of the Committee on Ethical Issues in the Provision of Health Care of the New York State Bar Association. 

Professor Coleman came to Seton Hall in 2000 and is the Director of the Health Law and Policy Program. In 2007 he was awarded the Andrea Catania Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching.

 
Publications
 
Book

The Ethics and Regulation of Research with Human Subjects (Lexis, 2005) (with Jerry A. Menikoff, Jesse A. Goldner, and Nancy N. Dubler )

Law Review Articles

Beyond the Call of Duty: Compelling Health Care Professionals to Work During an Influenza Pandemic, 94 Iowa L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2009)

Research with Decisionally Incapacitated Human Subjects: An Argument for a Systemic Approach to Risk-Benefit Assessment, 83    Ind. L.J. __ (forthcoming 2008)

Duties to Subjects in Clinical Research, 58 Vand. L. Rev. 387 (2005)

Rationalizing Risk Assessment in Human Subject Research, 46 Ariz. L. Rev. 1 (2004)        

Conceiving Harm: Disability Discrimination in Assisted Reproductive Technologies, 50 UCLA L. Rev. 17 (2002)

Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Constitution, 30 Ford. Urb. L.J. 57 (2002) (paper delivered at symposium at Fordham Law School, “Religious Values and Legal Dilemmas in Bioethics”)

Procreative Liberty and Contemporaneous Choice: An Inalienable Rights Approach to Frozen Embryo Disputes, 84 Minn. L. Rev. 55 (1999)

Developments in the Law — Sexual Orientation and the Law, 102 Harv. L. Rev. 1508, 1554-84 (1989) (primary author of section on employment law); reprinted in Sexual Orientation And The Law (Harvard University Press, 1990)

Other Articles

Potential Penalties for Health Care Professionals Who Refuse to Work During a Pandemic, 299 JAMA 1471 (2008) (with Andreas Reis)

How Do We Know that Research Ethics Committees Are Really Working? The Neglected Role of Outcomes Assessment in Research Ethics Review, 9 BMC Medical Ethics 6 (2008) (with Marie-Charlotte Bouësseau)

Why Have IRBs at All? A Reply to Noah, 25 J. Leg. Med. 295 (2004) (response to article by Lars Noah)

HIV, ARTs, and the ADA 30 Am. J. Bioethics, Winter 2003, at 43 (short commentary on article by Mark Sauer)

The “Disparate Impact” Argument Reconsidered: Making Room for Justice in the Assisted Suicide Debate, 30 J.L. Med. & Ethics 17 (2002) (commentary on article by Ronald Lindsay) [Posted on this webpage with permission of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. May not be distributed or reproduced without its express written consent.]

Closing the Gaps in Genetics Legislation and Policy: A Report by the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, 5 Genetic Testing 275 (2001) (with Ann M. Carroll)

Is There a Constitutional Right to Preconception Sex Selection? Am. J. Bioethics, Winter 2001, at 27 (short commentary on article by John Robertson)

Developing Public Policy on Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Reflections on the Work of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, 73 Fertility & Sterility 21 (2000) (with Barbara A. DeBuono)

Treatment Decisions for Patients Without Surrogates: Rethinking Policies for a Vulnerable Population, 45 J. Am. Geriatrics Soc’y 369 (1997) (with Tracy E. Miller & Anna Maria Cugliari)

Guidelines for Physician-Assisted Suicide: Can the Challenge Be Met? 24 J.L.Med. & Ethics 217 (1996) (with Alan R. Fleischman) [Posted on this webpage with permission of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics.  May not be distributed or reproduced without its express written consent.]

Stemming the Tide: Assisted Suicide and the Constitution, 23 J.L. Med. & Ethics 389 (1995) (with Tracy E. Miller); reprinted in Physician-Assisted Suicide (Greenhaven Press, 1997) [Posted on this webpage with permission of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics.  May not be distributed or reproduced without its express written consent.]

Book Chapters

Assisted Reproductive Technologies, in International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family 2d ed. (James J. Ponzetti et al. ed., 2002)

Decision Making for Residents Without Surrogates, in Voices of Decision in Nursing Homes: Respecting Residents’ Preferences for End-of-Life Care 65 (Mathy D. Mezey & Nancy Neveloff Dubler eds., 2001) (with Michele Petruzzelli)

Online Commentaries

 Strengthening Local Review of Research in Africa: Is The IRB Model Relevant?, Bioethics Forum (December 22, 2006) (with Marie-Charlotte Bouësseau)

End-of-Life Decision-Making and the Politics of the Fetus, Bioethics Forum (July 26, 2006)

Reports of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law

New York State Task Force on Life and the law, Genetic Testing And Screening In The Age Of Genomic Medicine (2000) (editor)

New York State Task Force on Life and the law, Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Analysis and Recommendations for Public Policy (1998) (editor; primary author of selected chapters)

New York State Task Force on Life and the law, When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide And Euthanasia In The Medical Context -- supplement to report(1997) (primary author); excerpts reprinted in Ethical Issues In Modern Medicine (John D. Arras & Bonnie Steinbock eds., 5th ed., 1998)

New York State Task Force on Life and the law, When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide And Euthanasia In The Medical Context (1994) (primary author of chapter on legal issues)