Exploring Racial Disparities in Access to Legal Care and Access to Health Care

The University of South Carolina Rice School of Law’s conference exploring racial disparities in access to legal care and access to health care is scheduled for October 3-4, 2025.  The conference will include 12 hours of accredited instruction and will seek qualification for both CLE and CME credits.  Sponsored by the USC Rice Law School, The American Academy of Legal medicine (AALM) and The Clementa Pinckney Foundation, made possible by the philanthropy of Google, the conference will focus on a national audience of those interested in access to legal justice and medical care.  Although a number of conferences have focused on access to justice or to access to health care, this conference will provide a unique examination of the confluence of both areas of access.

USC Rice School of Law is uniquely suited to conduct this conference.  Its Dean is a  former President of the American Bar Association who founded a significant ABA initiative for access to justice as well as the World Justice Project, where he continues to serve as Chair of the Board.  The school has served for decades as the home of the nationally-renowned Nelson Mullins Center on Professionalism.  The law school has hosted a number of conferences exploring access to justice— for example, the school’s law review recently conducted a national symposium on that topic.  In addition to faculty members, the planning committee includes the nationally-renowned head of the state’s most significant legal services entity and a state supreme court justice who serves as the chair of the state’s Access to Justice  Commission.

The law school is equally suited to address access to health care issues.  The law school is the home of a master’s program in health systems law,  which also closely collaborates with the acclaimed USC medical school and nursing school.  Members of the law school faculty have national reputations in health care access and have previously hosted national-level conferences sponsored by an international health care company.

Spearheading the conference is Dr. Francois Blaudeau, an ObGyn surgeon who is the President of the American Academy of Legal Medicine. Dr. Blaudeau is founder of the Southern Institute for Medical and Legal Affairs.  Access to justice and access to health care were primary focuses of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, so the conference’s program is consistent with the goals of the Pinckney Foundation.  The AALM will be providing five of the speakers  that will representing at the conference.