John Thomas Smith Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Global Health Justice Partnership
Education
J.D., Yale Law School, 2003 M.A., Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 1998 M. Phil., University of Cambridge, 1997 A.B., Princeton University, 1996
Intellectual Property: The Law and Political Economy of Scientific and Cultural Production
Health Justice Practicum
Constitutional Law
International IP Law
Property
Amy Kapczynski is the John Thomas Smith Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She is also the Faculty Director of the Law and Political Economy Project1, co-founder and member of the editorial board of the Law and Political Economy blog2, and Faculty Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership. Prior to joining the Yale faculty, she taught at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
Kapczynski has worked closely with social movements involved in campaigns for access to medicines around the world, testified before state and federal legislatures, and written for venues including Boston Review, Democracy, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In 2022 her teaching was recognized with the YLW Faculty Excellence Award at Yale Law School.
Before teaching, Kapczynski served as a law clerk to Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen G. Breyer at the U.S. Supreme Court, and to Judge Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Visiting Professor of Law and Solomon Center Distinguished Visitor Aaron Kesselheim was quoted about the rarity of successful challenges to proposed pharmaceutical mergers by the FTC. Professor of Law Amy Kapczynski ’03 was also quoted.
Amy Kapczynski ’03 is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Faculty Co-Director of the Law and Political Economy Project, cofounder of the Law and Political Economy blog, and Faculty Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership.
In this episode of "Inside Yale Law School," Professor Amy Kapczynski ’03 recalls her battles as a law student with drug companies — and Yale University — over their patent policies on AIDS drugs. She also shares her fascination with intellectual property law and political economy, and why we all need to be kinder to each other.
Amy Kapczynski ’03 is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Faculty Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership, and Faculty Co-Director of the Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency.
Rethinking Law, a new volume edited by Professor Amy Kapczynski ’03, collects prominent thinkers exploring new paradigms in legal thought that ask how to better confront and undo the law’s complicity with injustice.
Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, will deliver the 2022 Gruber Distinguished Lecture in Women’s Rights.
Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis, Yale Law Journal, Apr. 2020 (with Jedediah Britton-Purdy, David Singh Grewal, & K. Sabeel Rahman)
The Law of Informational Capitalism, Yale Law Journal, Mar. 2020 (Review of SHOSHANA ZUBOFF, THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM and JULIE COHEN, BETWEEN TRUTH AND POWER)
Patents, trade and medicines: past, present and future (with Ken Shadlen and Bhaven Sampat), 27 Rev. Int’l Pol. Econ. 75 (2019)
We’ll never reach herd immunity if we don’t vaccinate more non-White people, Wash. Post, Feb. 26, 2021 (with Gregg Gonsalves and David Herman)
How Law Made Neoliberalism35, Boston Review Feb. 22, 2021 (with Jedediah Britton-Purdy and David Grewal)
Remdesivir Could be in Short Supply: Here’s a Fix, NY Times, July 28, 2020 (with Paul Biddinger and Rochelle Walensky)
The New Politics of Care, BOSTON REVIEW, Apr. 2020 (with Gregg Gonsalves)
Markets vs. Lives, BOSTON REVIEW, Mar. 2020 (with Gregg Gonsalves)
Alone Against the Virus, BOSTON REVIEW, Mar. 2020 (with Gregg Gonsalves)
To Help Develop The Safest, Most Effective Coronavirus Tests, Treatments, and Vaccines, Ensure Public Access To Clinical Research Data, Health Affairs Blog, Mar. 26, 2020 (with Chris Morten, Joe Ross, and Harlan Krumholz)
Confidentiality Orders and Public Interest in Drug and Medical Device Litigation, JAMA Internal Medicine, Vol. 180 No. 2, 292 (2020) (with Alex Egilman, Aaron Kesselheim, Harlan Krumholz, Joe Ross, and Jeanie Kim)
Free Speech Incorporated, BOSTON REVIEW, Dec. 5, 2019
United States v. Gilead: Can a Lawsuit Yield Better Access To PrEP?, Health Affairs Blog, Nov. 18, 2019 (with Christopher Morten)
Confidentiality Orders in Drug, Device Lawsuits Harm Patients and the Public, StatNews, Nov. 11, 2019 (with Alexander Egilman and Joe Ross)
Assessing Drug Pricing Reform Proposals: The Real Leverage And Benefits Of Competitive Licensing, HEALTH AFFAIRS BLOG, Nov. 4, 2019 (with Christopher Morten)
Political Economy and Human Rights: Paths Forward, Humanity Blog, Oct. 4, 2019 (part of a symposium on my article, The Right to Medicines in an Age of Neoliberalism)
No Fast Track for Unfair Trade Deals, HUFFINGTON POST, June 11, 2015 (with Judith Resnik)
Intellectual Property’s Leviathan, 77 LAW & CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS 131 (2014)
Going Local in the Era of TRIPS Implementation, in BALANCING HEALTH AND WEALTH: THE BATTLE OVER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ACCESS TO MEDICINES IN LATIN AMERICA 263 (Rochelle C. Dreyfuss and Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito eds., 2014) (Spanish edition published 2016)