Wake Forest University Professor Mark Hall Plays a Key Role in Restatement of the Law Third

Winston-Salem, NC – On May 21, 2024, the American Law Institute (ALI), voted to approve the Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Medical Malpractice, concluding five years of work focused on identifying and clearly stating the law of medical malpractice in the United States. The Restatement project was co-led by Professor Mark A. Hall, the Fred and Elizabeth Turnage Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law and Policy Program at Wake Forest University, along with former Wake Forest Law faculty member Michael D. Green, and Stanford Law’s Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom.

The ALI’s Restatements are extremely influential in the legal world, guiding courts, legislatures, scholars, and legal practitioners in understanding and applying the law. The Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Medical Malpractice focuses on distinct liability issues that arise when a patient seeks or obtains medical care, including matters such as informed consent, the duties medical providers owe to patients, and the special standards that govern the negligence determination in the context of a physician-patient relationship.

The effort by Professor Hall and his co-Reporters to complete the Medical Malpractice project has been immense. Over the past five years, they assembled more than a dozen drafts, each incorporating the comments and guidance received by the projects’ 57 Advisers and Liaisons, as well as the 121 ALI members who joined the Members Consultative Group.

“Medical malpractice has never before been restated. The ALI is fortunate to have one of the world’s foremost experts on health law serve as Reporter,” said Wake Forest Law’s Professor Jonathan Cardi, who also served as a reporter for the Restatement of the Law Third, Torts. “Mark has managed a difficult and politically fraught subject with incredible perspicacity. The product will be a great help to courts in the years to come.”

“It has been enormously gratifying to help lead a project of this significance,” said Professor Hall. “As a professor of both law and health policy, this has been a great opportunity to help shape a major body of health care law in a fashion that recognizes major challenges that patients and health care providers confront in the current environment in which medical care is rendered.” In addition to the Medical Malpractice project, Professor Hall also serves as an Advisor to the Torts: Miscellaneous Provisions project.