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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.
Professor and Director, Prolife Center, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Teresa Collett, J.D., is professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where she serves as director of the school's Prolife Center. Collett received her doctorate at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. As a well-known advocate for the protection of human life and the family, Collett specializes in the subjects of marriage, religion and bioethics in her research.
Collett has published numerous legal articles and is the co-author of a law casebook on professional responsibility and co-editor of a collection of essays exploring “catholic” and “Catholic” perspectives on American law. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and has testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as before legislative committees in several states.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collett to a five-year term on the Pontifical Council for the Family. Her appointment was renewed by His Holiness Pope Francis until 2016 when the responsibilities of the Council were assumed by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. In 2013, she served as a delegate to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) for the Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.
She represented Congressman Ron Paul and various medical groups in the defense of the U.S. federal ban of partial-birth abortion, and the governors of Minnesota and North Dakota defending the N.H. requirement of state parental involvement prior to performance of an abortion on a minor before the U.S. Supreme Court. Collett is often asked to represent the interests of government officials before federal appellate courts. She has served as special attorney general for the states of Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as assisting other state attorneys general in defending laws protecting human life and marriage. Prior to joining St. Thomas in 2003, Collett taught at the South Texas College of Law, where she established the nation's first annual symposium on legal ethics.
Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Health and Biomedical Law Concentration and the Masters of Law: Life Sciences program, Suffolk University
Professor Renée Landers is a Professor of Law, Faculty Director of the Health and Biomedical Law Concentration and the Masters of Science in Law: Life Sciences program at Suffolk University Law School in Boston.
She was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance during her fall 2018 sabbatical leave. She was also the President of the Boston Bar Association in 2003-2004, and was the first woman of color and the first law professor to serve in that position. Professor Landers 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 and chaired the Section’s Nominating Committee in 2018 - 2019. She is a Trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital and New England Donor Services and is a former Trustee of the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary. In 2019, she rejoined the board of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and became President of the Board beginning in July 2020. Recently, she co-chaired the Boston Bar Association’s Task Force on Judicial Independence which issued a report in August 2019. She was a member of the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct and served as Vice Chair of the Commission from 2009 to 2010. She also 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 which advises judges on compliance with the Code. 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 Vice President of the NASI Board of Directors. Landers was a member of the Academy’s study panels on Strengthening Medicare’s Role in Reducing Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, Health Insurance Exchanges, and Examining Approaches to Expand Medicare Eligibility. She currently co-chairs a study panel on Economic Security. She is the author of articles on the potential for Massachusetts health care reform initiatives to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care and aspects of the Affordable Care Act. In addition to health care, Landers has written on diversity in the legal profession and privacy and is a regular commentator on legal developments in constitutional law, health law, and administrative law for media organizations.
In summer 2019, she was appointed to serve as an observer representing the ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice on a Telehealth Study Committee. And, after March 2020, she was appointed to serve as an observer representing the ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice on a Public Health Emergencies Study Committee.
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 Phi Beta Kappa, 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, and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Women’s Network. In November 2018 she was elected a Fellow of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
