Diane E. Hoffmann, J.D.
Associate Dean for Academic Programs
Director, Law and Health Care Program
Professor of Law
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Diane Hoffmann received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Duke University, her M.S. in Health Policy and Management from Harvard School of Public Health and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.  After completing law school, she was an associate with the firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood in Washington, DC. Prior to law school, she worked as a policy analyst and advisor to the Massachusetts secretary of environmental affairs.
Diane Hoffmann has been on the faculty at Maryland since 1987. She has taught Torts, Law and Medicine, Health Care Law, Legal Problems of the Elderly, Critical Issues in Health Care, Research with Human Subjects, and Health Care for the Poor. Her research interests include issues at the intersection of law, health care, ethics and public policy such as advance directives, pain treatment, termination of life support, genetics, regulation of research, and of managed care. She was a primary author of Maryland's Health Care Decisions Act dealing with advance directives, surrogate decision-making and guardianship for individuals lacking health care decision-making capacity. She has served as a member of a number of ethics committees including those at University of Maryland Medical Systems, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and the VA Medical Center in Baltimore and is author of A Handbook for Nursing Home Ethics Committees published by the American Association of Homes & Services for the Aging (AAHSA). She also served as a member of AAHSA's Commission on Ethics in Long Term Care. In Spring 2005 she was appointed to serve on the Ethics Committee of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. She is the founder of the Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network, an educational resource for ethics committees in Maryland. From June 1994 - May 1995, while on leave from the Law School, she served as the Acting Staff Director of the Senate Subcommittee on Aging and was responsible for all health care and aging legislation for U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski. From 1997-2003, she was a Mayday Scholar focusing much of her research and scholarship on obstacles to the management of pain. She has published several major articles in this area, “The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain,” “Achieving the Right Balance in Oversight of Physician Opiod Prescribing for Pain: The Role of State Medical Boards,” and “Pain Management and Palliative Care in the Era of Managed Care: Issues for Health Insurers.” Her current research includes a study of the use of health related genetic tests in the court room and an article on the criminal prosecution of physicians for prescription of opiods.