Elizabeth McCuskey, JD

Professor McCuskey's research focuses on regulatory reforms for health equity and courts’ roles in securing those reforms. She has nationally-recognized expertise in state-level health reforms and the role of employer-sponsored insurance in universal access plans, especially ERISA preemptions issues. She advises state legislative task forces on preemption issues in the design of health reforms. Her scholarship appears in legal academic journals including Columbia Law Review, The University of Pennsylvania Law Review, The University of California Davis Law Review, The Ohio State Law Journal, Temple Law Review, Nevada Law Journal, and Nebraska Law Review, in addition to the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics, the Journal of Legal Medicine, and the N.Y.U. Review of Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation. Her work on ERISA preemption and state health reform was featured on Health Affairs Forefront and by The Commonwealth Fund and she has covered FDA preemption for SCOTUSBlog. Professor McCuskey was a 2023 Brocher Foundation Scholar-in-Residence in Switzerland. The American Society for Law, Medicine, & Ethics selected Professor McCuskey as a 2016 Health Law Scholar and she serves as an adjunct of Saint Louis University’s Center for Health Law Studies.

Professor McCuskey also brings both academic and practice experience to the classroom, where she teaches Public Health Law, Health Law & Policy, Health Insurance & the ACA, Health Care Antitrust, and Food & Drug Law. She previously served as Professor of Law at UMass, and directed the University of Toledo College of Law’s health law program and inter-professional joint degree programs combining law with medicine and public health. Before her academic career, Professor McCuskey practiced law with Drinker, Biddle, & Reath LLP, specializing in antitrust and appellate litigation for health care clients. In addition, she has served as a board member and advocate with Philadelphia Legal Assistance, a litigation assistant for Hale and Dorr LLP’s representation of Boston Scientific, an intern for then-Chief Judge David Faber on the U.S. District Court for the S.D.W.V., and a member of Advisory Committee to the U.S. District Court for the N.D.O.H.