Professor Nina A. Kohn

Nina A. Kohn is the David M. Levy Professor of Law and Faculty Director of Online Education at Syracuse University College of Law, and a Distinguished Scholar in Elder Law with the Solomon Center for Health Law & Policy at Yale Law School.  She serves as Reporter for the revised Uniform Health Care Decisions Act, and previously served as the Reporter for the Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangments Act.  She co-chairs the Elder Rights Committee of the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section of the American Bar Association, and co-directs the Aging, Law, and Society Collaborative Research Network.

Professor Kohn’s research focuses on elder law and the civil rights of older adults and persons with diminished cognitive capacity. Her recent articles have addressed such issues as supported and surrogate decision-making, financial exploitation of the elderly, vulnerability and discrimination in old age, the practical and constitutional implications of elder abuse legislation, the potential for an elder rights movement, and legal education. She also authored the textbook Elder Law: Practice, Policy & Problems (Aspen 2014). Consistent with her research interests, Professor Kohn has taught elder law, family law, trusts and estates, torts, and an interdisciplinary gerontology course.

Professor Kohn earned an A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard University. She clerked for the Honorable Fred I. Parker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Following her clerkship, she was awarded a fellowship by the Skadden Fellowship Foundation to provide direct representation to nursing home residents and frail elders. In 2011, she received Syracuse University College of Law’s Res Ipsa Loquitur award recognizing excellence in teaching, and in 2012 she was selected as Syracuse University’s Judith Greenberg Seinfeld Distinguished Faculty Fellow.