Lawrence Oglethorpe Gostin (born October 19, 1949) is an American law professor who specializes in public health law. He was a Fulbright Fellow and is best known as the author of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act and as a significant contributor to journals on medicine and law. Early life and education Larry Gostin was born in New York City in 1949, the son of Joseph and Sylvia Gostin. He received a B.A. in psychology from the State University of New York at Brockport in 1971 and a J.D. from Duke Law School in 1974. He was an adjunct professor at Harvard University from 1986 to 1994 and went on to be a professor of law at Georgetown University's Law Center and a professor of law and public health at Johns Hopkins University's School of Hygiene and Public Health. Career in health law In the 1970's, Gostin relocated to the United Kingdom and joined the mental health charity MIND, where he helped establish its Legal Welfare and Rights Department in 1975. He served as the organization's legal director until 1983. During his time at MIND, he was instrumental in the organization's campaign regarding reform of mental health legislation. According to Jennifer Brown, Gostin's writings on "new legalism" – a regulatory philosophy which combined protection of mental health patients' civil rights with entitlement to proper mental health treatment – was a big influence on the Mental Health Act 1983. Gostin himself estimated that two thirds of the act were based on proposals from MIND or from his writings. As legal director of MIND, Gostin also oversaw the filing of many test cases at the European Commission of Human Rights and European Court of Human Rights "highlighting the absence of possibilities for a legal review of detention [under UK mental health legislation] for many." From January 1984 to 1985, Gostin was general secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties in the United Kingdom. From 1986 to 1994, he was executive director of the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Bioethics. He worked on Hillary Clinton's health plan, serving as chairman of the health information privacy and public health committees of the President's Task Force on Health Care Reform. His proposed Model State Emergency Health Powers Act ignited a firestorm of controversy across the ideological spectrum, from Phyllis Schlafly to LAMBDA, for being overly broad and ripe for abuse. He is