Students enrolled in the Health Law and Policy Clinic will work on cutting-edge legislative, regulatory, and litigation projects at the state and national levels aimed at increasing access to quality, comprehensive health care for poor and low-income individuals and families. Student projects involve:
- informing current debates on the Affordable Care Act and efforts to repeal and replace the law;
- providing law and policy analysis to national and state coalitions advocating to protect Medicaid, Medicare, and discretionary health and public health programs;
- investigating best practices for initiatives to address health disparities and reduce barriers to health care for our most vulnerable populations; and
- litigating to address unfair and discriminatory public and private health insurance practices.
National-level work involves advising government actors and leading chronic illness and disability partnerships to promote health and public health reform initiatives. State-level work allows students the opportunity to travel to facilitate trainings and meetings and to support advocacy and litigation strategy development on a broad range of current health and public health concerns.
Over the course of a semester, students work closely with clinical faculty to become skilled, innovative, and thoughtful practitioners. Students gain a wealth of hands-on experience in current and emerging health law and policy issues, and develop written products such as fact sheets, in-depth reports, comment letters, testimony, presentations, draft legislation, regulatory guidance and brief writing and research in ongoing litigation. Students have the opportunity to develop a range of problem-solving, policy analysis, research and writing, oral communication, advocacy and leadership skills. The Clinic’s on-campus office is in the 1607 Massachusetts Avenue building, where students will meet with their clinical supervisors and colleagues; students also have significant flexibility to work offsite.
How to Register
Students in the fall clinic enroll in either the fall Public Health Law & Policy seminar or the Health Care Rights in the 21st Century seminar. Spring clinical students enroll in either the spring Public Health Law & Policy seminar or the spring Policy Advocacy Workshop. Enrollment is coordinated by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs.
The clinic is offered in the Fall and Spring semesters. You can learn about the required clinical course component, clinical credits and the clinical registration process by reading the course catalog description and exploring the links in this section.
Meet the Instructors

Kevin Costello
Litigation Director
Kevin Costello is the Senior Associate Director of the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation and directs the Center’s litigation efforts. Prior to coming to CHLPI, Kevin was in private practice for eight years, most recently as a principal at Klein Kavanagh Costello, LLP. Kevin’s practice involved complex litigation in the fields of housing, health care, civil rights, antitrust and consumer law. He has been appointed by federal courts across the country to represent classes in Multi-District Litigation, as well as in nationwide class action litigation. Kevin has brought lawsuits against major banks for broken promises arising from the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, challenged the broadcast blackout restrictions of Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League and fought against the practices of law firms and banks in Massachusetts that improperly foreclosed on financially vulnerable homeowners. Kevin was also part of the team that litigated a series of cases uncovering systemic racial discrimination in the mortgage lending field. Prior to entering private practice, Kevin was a staff attorney at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, helping seniors navigate the health care system. In this role, he fought to ensure that his low-income clients were treated fairly in the roll-out of the Medicare prescription drug benefit and litigated to enforce their rights in various public benefit and health care systems. Mr. Costello is an honors graduate of both Boston College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He served as law clerk to both the Hon. Joseph H. Rodriguez of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and the Hon. Francis X. Spina of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Katie Garfield
Director of Whole Person Care; Clinical Instructor
Katie is a Clinical Instructor at the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School. Katie joined the Center in 2014 and currently focuses her work on the Center’s whole-person care initiatives, including the Center’s Food is Medicine project. In her work on these initiatives, she has had the opportunity to work with community-based organizations, state agencies, health care providers, and coalitions to develop strategies to increase access to innovative services such as Food is Medicine interventions. Prior to joining the Center, Katie was an associate at Ropes & Gray LLP. She is a licensed member of the Massachusetts Bar.

Erika Hanson
Clinical Instructor
Erika joined the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School in 2022 as a Clinical Instructor in the Health Law and Policy Clinic. Prior to joining HLPC, she was a Staff Attorney at The Legal Aid Society in New York City for nearly five years, where she represented clients, conducted class action litigation, and led policy advocacy on a wide range of issues including access to benefits, medical service denials, discrimination in health care, and the reduction and elimination of medical debt and Medicaid overpayments. Prior to working at The Legal Aid Society, Erika was a Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow and a Reproductive Rights & Health Legal Fellow at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C. She has published scholarly articles in the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly and the St. Louis University Law Journal. She is a licensed member of the New York State bar.

Elizabeth Kaplan
Clinical Instructor
Elizabeth joined the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation in 2022. Prior to joining CHLPI, Elizabeth worked as an Assistant Attorney General for Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. There, Elizabeth represented a variety of state agencies, including MassHealth, in institutional reform and other litigation. Elizabeth also has experience working in a medical-legal partnership, where she provided direct legal services to low-income clients with chronic conditions such as HIV/AIDS and mental illness. Her work spanned a variety of areas, including legal issues related to Medicare, Medicaid, and the rollout of the Affordable Care Act.
Elizabeth clerked for the Hon. Margot Botsford of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. She earned her JD from the University of California, Berkeley Law School, and her BA from Williams College. She is a licensed member of the Massachusetts Bar.

Rachel Landauer
Clinical Instructor
Rachel joined the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation in July 2018 as a Clinical Fellow in the Health Law and Policy Clinic. Rachel graduated from UCLA School of Law in May 2016 as a member of the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, and with a Master of Public Health degree from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. During law school, she worked with projects and organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, the National Health Law Program, and the Los Angeles HIV Law & Policy Project, and co-chaired UCLA’s Health Law Society. Immediately prior to joining the Center, Rachel was an associate at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, focusing on health care regulatory and compliance matters.

Maryanne Tomazic
Clinical Instructor
Maryanne Tomazic (she/her) is a clinical instructor at the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School. She is a public health lawyer, with a focus on health care policy, private health insurance, health care nondiscrimination, and access to gender-affirming and sexual/reproductive health care. Prior to law school, Maryanne worked at the intersection of health care reform and reproductive justice at Raising Women’s Voices (Community Catalyst), served as an elected official on a board of education, and volunteered as an emergency medical technician for many years. Her work is also informed by her experience growing up with immigrant family and her academic training at Boston University School of Law (Health Law), Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health (History and Ethics of Public Health), and Swarthmore College (Biology). She is licensed in New York.

Erin McCrady
Clinical Fellow
Erin McCrady joined the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation in 2021 as a Clinical Fellow with the Whole Person Care Team. Erin received an Honors Bachelor of Social Sciences in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from the University of Ottawa in 2015, and a J.D. with a concentration in Poverty Law and Economic Justice from Northeastern University School of Law in 2021. During law school, she worked with several organizations devoted to expanding housing and healthcare access in the Greater Boston Area. She also worked extensively with Northeastern’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project. Prior to law school, Erin worked in Cultural Heritage Policy for Parks Canada.
Suzanne Davies
Clinical Fellow
Suzanne joined the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation in September 2021 as a Clinical Fellow in the Health Law and Policy Clinic. She received her JD in 2020 from Boston University. While still in law school, Suzanne worked on health and disability issues with the New York City Department of Social Services, AARP Foundation Litigation, and Health Law Advocates. As a law student, Suzanne was Co-President of BU Law’s Outlaw chapter, and a founding member of BU Disability Law Advocates and Allies. Prior to joining the Center, Suzanne was a trial court law clerk for the Vermont Judiciary. Suzanne also holds a BA in Music from Columbia University.

John Card
Staff Attorney
John (he/they) joined the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School in 2022 as a Staff Attorney in the Health Law and Policy Clinic. Prior to joining the Center, John was a staff attorney at the Health Law Institute in Jamaica Plain where he provided free legal services to people living with or at high risk of HIV. His prior work focused on a variety of areas, including tenant rights, public benefit appeals, and criminal record sealing. John also has expertise in LGBTQ+ organizing, harm reduction and substance use disorder, and policing and public health. He graduated from Northeastern University School of Law in May 2019 and is a licensed member of the Massachusetts Bar.
In the News
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Advocating for inclusive policy making through the Health Law and Policy Clinic, AIDSWatch, and Beyond
This post was written by Health Law and Policy Clinic student, Ali Gentry ’23 As a student attorney at the Health Law and Policy Clinic this semester, I worked on […] The post Advocating for inclusive policy making through the Health Law and Policy Clinic, AIDSWatch, and Beyond appeared first on Center For Health […]
April 25, 2023
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After Prolonged Advocacy Efforts, HLS Students to See Two New Clinical Opportunities for Reproductive Justice Work
Originally written by Laura Kern and published by The Harvard Law Record on 4/19/23. Following a sit-in at Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Hall last October, the Harvard Law School Alliance for Reproductive […] The post After Prolonged Advocacy Efforts, HLS Students to See Two New Clinical Opportunities for Reproductive Justice Work appeared first on Center For […]
April 25, 2023
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Carmel Shachar named assistant clinical professor of law
Originally published by Harvard Law Today on 4/14/2023. Shachar will also serve as faculty director of the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School. Carmel Shachar J.D./M.P.H. ’10, […] The post Carmel Shachar named assistant clinical professor of law appeared first on Center For Health Law and Policy Innovation […]
April 25, 2023
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We asked. You answered. We amplified.
In a new letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), CHLPI and partner organizations lift up the voices of 35 stakeholders across 19 states. Over the course […] The post We asked. You answered. We amplified. appeared first on Center For Health Law and Policy Innovation.
April 24, 2023