Need to Know
As a clinician and scholar, Christopher Morten ’15 works to expand public access to scientific and technical information critical to people’s health.
’15 acknowledges that becoming a law professor wasn’t his original ambition: he first planned to become a research scientist, investigating cures for cancer or infectious diseases—“to create the knowledge that saves people from illness, that allows everyone to live dignified and happy lives,” he says. But after finishing his PhD in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Morten took a job working as a science advisor at the law firm Goodwin Procter, and took advantage of an employee tuition reimbursement program to go to law school.
At Law, Morten says, “I felt like my eyes were blown wide open.... I got to understand not just how the law worked, but how the laws came to be, whom the law is working for and not working for. And it got me thinking much more deeply about how law structures science and the development and distribution of technology, and how law structures our whole world.”
Now, as an associate professor, Morten brings his altruistic bent and his interest in the relationship of science and law back to Law—along with the pioneering clinic that he founded at Columbia Law School. The Science, Health, and Information Clinic (SHIC) tackles a wide range of issues, from challenging patents and trade secrets to consulting on state legislation related to nonprofit drug manufacturing. “Most often, we work in three areas of focus: protecting and increasing access to health care, protecting medical data privacy, [and] democratizing technological and scientific research,” Morten says. That includes access to medicines, vaccines, diagnostic technologies, and medical devices, he says. His students have represented organizations that include T1International, a diabetes patient group; PrEP4All, an HIV/AIDS advocacy group; and Doctors for America, which works for increased health care access.
Morten has written extensively on the interplay of intellectual property law and regulation, including how it affects the availability of technologies, in health care and otherwise, and the availability of information about those technologies. He often focuses on frameworks that would allow regulators to make important, potentially life-saving information and technology from private entities more widely available. In “Publicizing Corporate Secrets,” published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review in 2023, he argues that trade secrecy law does not necessarily override the authority of regulatory agencies to divulge business secrets, and he proposes creating data “gardens” for the controlled sharing of information with journalists, researchers, and consumers.
This fall won’t be the first time Morten has taught at the Law School. After earning his JD, Morten was a fellow at the and then deputy director of the Technology Law and Policy Clinic, before moving to Columbia in 2021. He taught his clinic at Law as a visiting associate professor in 2024. “I’m just beyond thrilled to be returning to , which feels like my intellectual home,” Morten says.
While a scientific background can be helpful for students in SHIC, Morten says, it’s not essential. “What you really need is that curiosity and willingness to learn new stuff,” he says. “Every day I learn something new—about not just the law, but the facts that the law is operating in.”
“I’m thrilled to welcome back someone I valued as one of my best ever students, whom I watched grow into a great advocate, a fantastic clinician, and a brilliant scholar,” says , Pauline Newman Professor of Law Emerita. “Chris has a terrific eye for important issues at the intersection of law, science, and public welfare. The intelligence and enthusiasm with which he pursues these interests will be an asset to the Engelberg Center, to his clinic, and to his own students.”
“Chris has a terrific eye for important issues at the intersection of law, science, and public welfare,” says Rochelle Dreyfuss, Pauline Newman Professor of Law Emerita.
Morten says that the wide range of faculty perspectives and expertise make Law a great place to learn. “To be here as a student or a fellow or a professor,” he says, “means you’re at the nerve center of almost everything that’s happening in American law and policy.”—Addison Dunlap