Biden COVID-19 Team Taps Veteran Public Health Law Prof

By Emily Lever
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Law360 (January 15, 2021, 4:24 PM EST) --
Abbe Gluck
The incoming Biden administration has picked a veteran public health lawyer who teaches at Yale's law and medical schools as special counsel for its COVID-19 response team, the transition team announced Friday.

Abbe Gluck, who has already been advising the COVID-19 team for the presidential transition, was named alongside a series of other health policy appointees — almost all of them alumni of the Obama-Biden administration — as President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris prepare to take the reins of the U.S. government Wednesday and face a continuing pandemic that has killed over 389,000 people nationwide.

"I look forward to working closely with these dedicated public servants not only to address this urgent crisis, but also to build better preparedness for future pandemics and other public health threats," Harris said in a statement.

Gluck could not immediately be reached for comment.

She is the faculty director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School and a professor in both the law and medical schools at Yale. Previously, Gluck taught at Columbia Law School following a job as special counsel to the New Jersey attorney general from 2007 to 2008. Before that, she worked in the administration of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, including as chief of staff and counsel to the deputy mayor for health and human services.

Gluck is a health law specialist with a focus on the Affordable Care Act and its surrounding legal battles, which she has written about for the Harvard Law Review and Stanford Law Review and in the recent book "The Trillion Dollar Revolution," which she co-edited with Ezekiel Emanuel. She also advised the Biden transition team on the Affordable Care Act, according to her online Yale biography.

Gluck clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from 2003 to 2004.

--Editing by Daniel King.

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