Christopher Morten ’15 will return to NYU Law and join the faculty, beginning July 1, 2025. Currently associate clinical professor of law at Columbia Law School, Morten is the founding director of the Science, Health, and Information Clinic at Columbia, and will bring the clinic to NYU Law. Through his clinic and his writing, Morten focuses on the legal and policy structures that govern how scientific and technical knowledge is created, shared, and withheld—especially in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical sectors.
“Chris is a leading scholar and clinician in the fields of technology, health, information, and intellectual property law,” said Dean Troy McKenzie ’00 in an email announcement. He noted that Morten is already well known to many at the Law School: “We look forward to welcoming Chris back to NYU Law.” A magna cum laude and Order of the Coif graduate of NYU Law, Morten has served as a fellow in the Law School’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy, as a clinical teaching fellow, and as deputy director of the Technology Law and Policy Clinic. This past fall, as a visiting associate professor of clinical law, Morten taught his Science, Health, and Information Clinic at the Law School. Earlier in 2024, he received the Founders Award from Doctors for America in recognition of his public interest advocacy.
Before entering academia, Chris clerked for Judge Timothy Dyk of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and practiced as a litigation associate and patent agent. He holds a PhD in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BA in chemistry from Columbia University. He is a visiting fellow of Yale’s Global Health Justice Partnership and an affiliate fellow of Yale’s Information Society Project.
Posted April 11, 2025