Leslie P. Francis

With a national reputation - and towering standard of excellence - as a scholar in both philosophy and law, Leslie P. Francis focuses her interdisciplinary research and teaching on issues of social justice, philosophy of law, and applied ethics. As an advocate for access to health care for minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities - as well as their rights to make their own decisions about their care - she makes an impact on the lives of colleagues, students, and citizens in the community.

Dr. Francis received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and her doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She joined the University of Utah's philosophy faculty as an assistant professor in 1976 and earned her juris doctorate from the U's College of Law in 1981. Named Professor of Philosophy in 1994 and the Alfred C. Emery Professor of Law in 2000, she has for two decades played leadership roles in both the philosophy department and the College of Law. She has also taught in the departments of political science and internal medicine.

Instrumental in building the graduate program in the Department of Philosophy, Dr. Francis served as its director from 1991 to 1999. She was named the Borchard Fellow by the university's Lowell Bennion Community Service Center for her innovative work in creating service-learning courses relating to environmental ethics and in serving as a mentor for fellow faculty in the development of service-learning opportunities for students.

Dr. Francis's work has been published in the Harvard Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Journal of American Medicine, and the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy where her writings have explored law's relationships to many other disciplines. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and for the past four years, she has served on the American Bar Association's Commission on the Legal Problems of the Elderly.