For more than a decade, the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School has engaged in a groundbreaking collaboration with the Consortium for the Advanced Study of Brain Injury (CASBI) at Weill Cornell Medicine to integrate the emerging science on brain injury with health law, including insurance, privacy, disability rights, and ethics. CASBI seeks to understand mechanisms of recovery following severe brain injuries and to develop novel therapeutic interventions and strategies. Through translational research and public policy engagement, CASBI at Yale works to affirm the rights of individuals with brain injury and to overcome the scientific and societal barriers that can limit their maximal integration into our society.
CASBI at Yale is led by Solomon Center Faculty Director Abbe R. Gluck and Distinguished Scholar in Medicine, Bioethics, and the Law Joseph J. Fins, MD, MACP, FRCP. Fins is the E. William Davis, Jr. M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medicine. The collaboration is grounded in Dr. Fins’s and CASBI’s pioneering scientific research on the use of deep brain stimulation in the minimally conscious state, including Dr. Fins’s book Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics, and the Struggle for Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Read here to learn more about the development of CASBI at Yale. The current senior advisors for CASBI at Yale are Megan Wright ’16, Professor of Law at Florida State University College of Law, and Zachary E. Shapiro, a Senior Research Fellow at the Solomon Center and a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Since its inception, the collaboration has grown to produce a full-time course at Yale Law School and nearly two-dozen publications in top law, policy, and medical journals, including:
Zachary E. Shapiro, Tiffany Li ('24), Kaiulani S. Shulman (Yale College '22), Melisa Olgun ('24), Chantelle van Wiltenburg (LLM '22), Molly Teague ('23), Emma Kromm ('24), Brandy Allen ('23), Elliot E.C. Ping ('25), John D. Bowers ('23), Rebecca Harris ('24), Nayla Basma ('22), Apurv Hirsh Shekhar (Med '23), Gregory E. Antill ('23), Megan S. Wright, and Joseph J. Fins, Realizing The Americans with Abilities Act: Promoting Civil Rights & Capabilities in the Service of Individuals with Brain Injury, UC Law Journal (2025)
Joseph J Fins, Kaiulani S. Shulman (BA ’22), Megan S. Wright (’16), and Zachary E. Shapiro, “Brain injury, medical progress, and the disability paradox: Towards an Americans with Abilities Act,” 54 NeuroRehabilitation 141 (2024)
Zachary E Shapiro, Chaarushena Deb (’21), Caroline Lawrence (’21), Allison Rabkin Golden (’20), Megan S. Wright (’16), Katherine L. Kraschel, and Joseph J. Fins, “The scholarly and pedagogical benefits of the legal laboratory: Lessons from the consortium for the Advanced Study of Brain Injury at Yale Law School,” 51 Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 672 (2023)
Zachary E. Shapiro, Allison Rabkin Golden ('20), Gregory E. Antill ('23), Katherine Fang ('22), Chaarushena Deb ('21), Elizabeth Clarke ('23), Alexis Kallen ('22), Hanya M. Qureshi (Med '23), Kai Shulman (BA '22), Caroline V. Lawrence ('21), Laura C. Hoffman, Megan S. Wright ('16) & Joseph J. Fins, Designing an Americans with Abilities Act: Consciousness, Capabilities, and Civil Rights, 63 B.C. L. Rev. 1729 (2022)
Zachary E Shapiro and Joseph J. Fins, “Pain Management, Disorders of Consciousness, and Tort Law: An Emergent Tort to Fix a Longstanding Injustice,” 98 Indiana Law Journal 693 (2022)
Zachary E. Shapiro, Chaarushena Deb ('21), Caroline Lawrence ('21), Allison Rabkin Golden ('20), Jaclyn Wilner ('20), Allison Durkin ('21), Zoe M. Adams, Wenqing Zhao ('20), Keturah James ('19), Adam Pan ('19), Megan S. Wright ('16), and Joseph J. Fins, "Olmstead Enforcements for Moderate to Severe Brain Injury: The Pursuit of Civil Rights Through the Application of Law, Neuroscience, and Ethics," 95 Tul. L. Rev. 525 (2021)
Joseph J. Fins, Megan S. Wright ('16), and Samuel Bagenstos. "Disorders of Consciousness and Disability Law," Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Aug. 2020)
Tamar Ezer, Megan S. Wright ('16), and Joseph J. Fins, "The Neglect of Persons with Severe Brain Injury in the United States: An International Human Rights Analysis," Health and Human Rights Journal (June 2020)
Zachary E Shapiro, Adam Pan (’19), Keturah James (’19), Megan S. Wright (’16), and Joseph J. Fins, “Nothing generic about it: promoting therapeutic access by overcoming regulatory and legal barriers to a robust generic medical device market,” 98 North Carolina Law Review 595 (2019).
Caroline Lawrence ('21), Zachary E Shapiro, Joseph J Fins, "Brain-computer interfaces and the right to be heard: calibrating legal and clinical norms in Pursuit of the Patient's Voice," 33 Harv. J. Law. Technol. 167 (2019)
Joseph J. Fins, "Disorders of Consciousness, Past, Present, and Future," Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (Oct. 2019)
Joseph J. Fins, "Mosaic Decisionmaking and Severe Brain Injury: Adding Another Piece to the Argument," Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (Oct. 2019)
Megan S. Wright (’16), Keturah James (’19), Adam Pan (’19), Joseph J. Fins, “When Biomarkers Are Not Enough: FDA Evaluation of Effectiveness of Neuropsychiatric Devices for Disorders of Consciousness,” 21 Stan. Tech. L. Rev. 276 (2018).
Megan S. Wright (’16), "End of Life and Autonomy: The Case for Relational Nudges in End-of-Life Decision-Making Law and Policy," 77 MD. L. Rev. 1062 (2018).
Megan S. Wright (’16), "Change without Change? Assessing Medicare Reimbursement for Advance Care Planning," 48 Hastings Ctr. Rep. 8 (2018).
Megan S. Wright (’16), Claudia Kraft (’15), Michael R. Ulrich, and Joseph J. Fins, "Disorders of Consciousness, Agency, and Health Care Decision Making: Lessons from a Developmental Model," 9 AJOB Neuroscience 56 (2018).
Joseph J. Fins and Megan S. Wright, “Rights Language and Disorders of Consciousness: A Call for Advocacy,” Brain Injury (2018).
Joseph J. Fins, "Brain Injury and the Civil Right We Don’t Think About," The NY Times (Aug. 2017).
Megan S. Wright (’16), Michael R. Ulrich, Joseph J. Fins, "Guardianship and Clinical Research Participation: The Case of Wards with Disorders of Consciousness," 27(1) Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 43 (Mar. 2017).
Joseph J. Fins, "Why Advances in Treating Those with Brain Injury Require Advances in Respecting their Rights," The Huffington Post (Jan. 2017).
Megan Wright (’16), with Joseph J. Fins, “Rehabilitation, Education, and the Integration of Individuals with Severe Brain Injury into Civil Society: Towards an Expanded Rights Agenda in Response to New Insights from Translational Neuroethics and Neuroscience,” 16 Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics 233 (Aug. 2016).
Michael R. Ulrich, Megan S. Wright ('16), Kyle Edwards ('18), Nathan Guevremont ('18), Joel Ramirez ('17), Nina Viarsava ('18), Joseph J. Fins, “Lincoln’s Promise: Congress, Veterans, and Traumatic Brain Injury," Hastings Center Bioethics Forum (June 2016).
Joseph J. Fins, Megan S. Wright ('16), Claudia Kraft ('15), Alix Rogers ('15), Marina B. Romani ('16), Samantha Godwin (LLM), Michael R. Ulrich, "Wither the "Improvement Standard"? Coverage for Severe Brain Injury After Jimmo v. Sebelius," 44 Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics 182 (Jan. 2016).
Joseph J. Fins, “Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics, and the Struggle for Consciousness,” Cambridge University Press (Aug. 2015).