Margaret Farrell
E-mail: academic@wcl.american.edu
Professor Margaret Farrell has been a law school professor, public interest lawyer and private practitioner in Washington D.C. since her graduation from the University of Chicago Law School after two years of law school at Yale University. From 1985-1986, she attended Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, receiving a scholarship as a Post Doctoral Fellow. As a law professor, she has taught courses in the regulation, insurance and delivery of health care and has published numerous articles on health law, ERISA, public benefit programs, administrative law, civil litigation and the use of special masters. In addition, she was a U.S. State Department Fulbright Lecturer in Law at Fudan University and at East China University of Politics and Law in Shanghai, China in 2004 where she taught public health law, contracts and insurance. As a public interest lawyer, Ms Farrell was a staff attorney at the Neighborhood Legal Services program in Washington, D.C. and litigation counsel at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law engaged in institutional reform litigation. During her academic career, Ms Farrell received fellowships at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C, where she conducted research on scientific evidence and expert testimony. After practicing law as a partner at the Washington D.C. law firm of Ennis, Friedman, Bersoff and Ewing, Margaret Farrell was a member of Governance and Legal Audit Committee of the White House Health Care Task Force and staff liaison for the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry and the United States Department of Labor. She currently serves as a special master in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in a class action suit brought on behalf of people with mental retardation.
Currently Teaching
Areas of Specialization
- Health Care Law and Regulation
- Public Health Law
- Special Masters in Civil Litigation
Degrees & Universities
- J.D., University of Chicago Law School 1964 (Order of the Coif, cum laude )
- B.A., Cornell University 1961
Selected Publications
- Margaret Farrell, Special Masters Under Revised Rule 53: Designer Roles (ALI ABA 2005).
- Margaret Farrell, The Role of Special Masters: Their Function and Legitimacy, 2 Widener Symposium J. 235 (1997).
- Margaret Farrell, Experts Testify on Expert Testimony, in Reforming the Civil Justice System, 301 (Larry Kramer, ed., N.Y.U. Press 1996).
- Margaret Farrell, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Epistemiology and Legal Process, 15 Cardozo L. Rev. 2183 (1994).
- Margaret Farrell, Coping with Scientific Evidence: The Use of Special Masters, 43 Emory L.J. 927 (1994).
- Margaret Farrell, Revisiting Roe v. Wade: Substance and Process in the Abortion Debate, 68 Ind. L.J. 269 (1993).
- Margaret Farrell, Doing Unto Others: A Proposal for Participatory Justice in Social Security’s Representative Payee Program, 53 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 883 (1992).
- Margaret Farrell, Administrative Paternalism: Social Security’s Representative Payment Program and Two Models of Justice, 14 Cardozo L. Rev. 283 (1992).
