Leading end of life litigator Kathryn Tucker and End of Life Liberty Project find new academic base at UC Law SF

UC Law SF College of the Law is pleased to welcome the End of Life Liberty Project and the project’s Executive Director Kathryn Tucker, one of the nation’s most respected advocates for end of life liberty. Tucker, who has longstanding relationships at UC Law SF and UCSF, brings her work to UC Law SF under the auspices of the UCSF/UC Law SF Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy.

“We are so delighted to welcome the End of Life Liberty Project to UC Law SF, which aligns well with our public service mission and the Consortium’s dedication to addressing critical issues at the intersection of law, medicine, and ethics,” said Jaime King, Professor of Law at UC Law SF and Associate Dean for the UCSF/UC Law SF Consortium on Law, Science, and Health Policy.

Tucker also brings decades of involvement in scholarship and teaching and is eager to involve students in her academic writing and advocacy work.

“An academic base for the End of Life Liberty Project at UC Law SF will be symbiotic and synergistic,” she notes, “providing a firm foundation for its work while also educating the next generation of end of life liberty advocates at one of the nation’s leading law schools.”

“Kathryn Tucker is the leading end of life litigator in the United States, and she is also one of the leading academic and policy voices on good medical care for those facing death,” said Robert Schwartz, a Senior Visiting Professor of Law at UC Law SF and Advisory Board Member for the End of Life Liberty Project. “She is, in addition, a particularly well-respected and beloved teacher. Tucker’s move to UC Law SF and to the Consortium will be a great contribution to our work in development and implementation of sound, research-based end of life policy.”

About The End of Life Liberty Project

The End of Life Liberty Project engages in creative analysis and advocacy to promote changes in law and policy that improve end of life care and expand the autonomy of terminally ill patients. The Project is the work of Kathryn Tucker, with an advisory board of end of life care luminaries including Timothy Quill, Robert Brody, Thaddeus Pope, Sylvia Law, Kathy Cerminara and Robert Schwartz.

Tucker founded the End of Life Liberty Project in 2015 as a program within the Disability Rights Legal Center, the nation’s oldest disability advocacy organization, during her tenure as the center’s Executive Director. This union between disability rights and end of life liberty proved transformational in the movement for end of life liberty. The End of Life Liberty Project’s unique position has enabled it to educate the public, professionals and policy makers about these issues and move the nation forward in the social change movement to expand end-of-life liberty.

Tucker joined the Disability Rights Legal Center with a record of two decades of success in leading advocacy work on end of life care. Her work to protect and expand the rights of the terminally ill has been at the forefront of nearly every advocacy effort in this arena in the United States since 1990, including both litigation and advocacy in legislative and administrative proceedings. The focus of these efforts ranges from advocacy to ensure respect for patient wishes with regard to prolonging life and managing pain and symptoms to a variety of efforts to expand end of life liberty to include the option of aid in dying.