Leslie Griffin

Leslie C. Griffin is William S. Boyd Professor at the Boyd School of Law.  Her courses include Constitutional Law, Bioethics, and Law and Religion.

What’s the most important thing you are working on right now?

I’m very grateful to be alive and healthy. Most of the law school is aware that a local man attacked me last October 7. I spent the next three weeks at Sunrise Hospital. I still have no recollection of the attack or of my initial hospitalization. I appreciate how faithful everyone here was to me while I was unconscious, fighting against death and brain injury. People just kept checking in on me at the hospital, hoping and praying that I was getting better.

I woke up only after being flown to Houston, Texas, for further treatment. My former Houston colleagues and friends visited me regularly, just as all the Las Vegans had here. Fortunately, once I came to I got better quickly, and I was allowed to fly back home on December 23.

My experience has committed me to work for better health care for patients, whose real needs are too frequently ignored by doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel.

How does your research and scholarship influence your teaching and service and vice versa?

By pure coincidence, I am on sabbatical this semester. I’ve given successful talks to three very different audiences: at a Toronto, Canada, law school; at a Stanford BioLawPalooza conference; and at a Chicago conference with the New Ways Ministry, a religious organization that has long fought to protect LGBT rights.

I spoke about my two favorite topics, namely bioethics and religious freedom. My new focus in bioethics is on protecting patients’ rights more carefully. My recurring focus in law and religion is explaining how many individual Americans are harmed by our mistaken, current understanding of employers’ religious freedom.

Some of the religion themes are mentioned in my recent article, Marriage Rights and Religious Exemptions in the United States.

What is it about being a law school professor that inspires or motivates you?

Almost no one is as helpless as an injured patient. I hope my students can learn how to use the law to protect lonely individuals who suffer ill health and/or injustice.

I am inspired and motivated by my law students and colleagues who wished, hoped, prayed, and helped me back to good health.