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The Future of Law and Neuroscience

Future Of Law and Neuroscience Flyer

Saturday, April 27, 2013, The Conrad Chicago Hotel

Click here to download the conference briefing book materials.

 

Sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, the American Bar Association, Vanderbilt Law School, the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section, and the American Bar Association Science & Technology Section.

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Summary

Our rapidly growing understanding of the brain has implications for a wide variety of legal practices. Already, criminal law is seeing brain-based defenses, neuroimaging evidence has been integrated into brain injury litigation, and the science of decision making is being used to better understand juror behavior and negotiation.

In light of these and many other exciting areas of neurolaw, the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, the American Bar Association, Vanderbilt Law School, and the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research co-sponsored a one day conference: The Future of Law and Neuroscience, held in Chicago, at The Conrad Chicago Hotel, on Saturday, April 27, 2013.

The program featured a law and neuroscience curriculum specifically designed for lawyers, and drew on new research from the MacArthur Foundation Research Network. Topics covered include: An introduction to cognitive neuroscience (including brain imaging techniques) for lawyers; neuroscience and criminal justice; decision making; the developing brain; memory and lie detection; and evidentiary issues surrounding neuroscientific evidence.

Schedule

The official program started at 8:30 am and end at 5:00 pm, on Saturday, April 27, 2013. The day featured four panels on law and neuroscience, with an opportunity for audience questions.

Click here for Schedule PDF

Congressman Chaka Fattah provided opening remarks, and participants included:

  • Geoffrey Aguirre, Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania
  • BJ Casey, Sackler Professor for Developmental Psychobiology, Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University
  • Hon. Andre Davis, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
  • Eric Drogin, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Clinical Instructor in Psychology, Member, Program in Psychiatry and the Law, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Faculty Member, Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program
  • Judith G. Edersheim, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; senior consultant to the Law and Psychiatry Service, Massachusetts General Hospital; Co-Director of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior, Massachusetts General Hospital
  • David Faigman, John F. Digardi Distinguished Professor of Law, Director of the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy University of California, Hastings College of the Law
  • Nita Farahany, Professor of Law, Professor of Genome Sciences & Policy, Duke University
  • Hank Greely, Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law, Stanford Law School; Director, Center for Law and the Biosciences; Professor (by courtesy) of Genetics, Stanford School of Medicine; Chair, Steering Committee of the Center for Biomedical Ethics; and Director, Stanford Interdisciplinary Group on Neuroscience and Society.
  • Oliver Goodenough, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
  • Monika Gruter Cheney, Executive Director and President, Board of Directors, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research
  • Owen Jones, New York Alumni Chancellor's Professor of Law & Professor of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University; Director, MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience
  • Stephen J. Morse, Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law; Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania
  • Elizabeth Phelps, Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University
  • Hon. Jed Rakoff, United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York
  • Francis Shen, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Law School; Executive Director of Education & Outreach for the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience
  • Christopher Slobogin, Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law, Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Criminal Justice Program, Vanderbilt University Law School