Lisa Radtke Bliss
Associate Dean of Experiential Education and Clinical Programs; Clinical Professor, Co-director of Health Law Partnership Legal Services Clinic Administration/Leadership, Center for Law Health and Society, HeLP Legal Services Clinic- Education
J.D. with honors, University of Florida Levin College of Law
B.A. with honors, University of North Florida
- Specializations
Health Law
Disability Law
Experiential Education
Clinical Legal Education
Legal Education Reform
- Biography
Lisa Radtke Bliss is a Fulbright Scholar, clinical professor, and associate dean of experiential education and clinical programs. She oversees the college’s experiential programs, and co-directs and teaches in the Health Law Partnership (HeLP) Legal Services Clinic, a civil clinic that is part of a medical-legal partnership. In the clinic, Bliss teaches and works alongside law students, medical students and graduate students in the fields of social work, public health and bioethics to represent clients and address their health-harming legal needs. Bliss holds an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine.
Bliss is a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar. In 2019, she was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Chair and taught at Palacky University Faculty of Law in Olomouc, Czech Republic.
Bliss is a frequent presenter and consultant on clinical legal education and interdisciplinary education, including the development of law school clinics in the context of medical-legal partnership. She is active in supporting and developing clinical legal education and experiential education generally. For several years, she co-chaired the Clinical Legal Education Association’s Best Practices Implementation Committee. Her study of best practices led to her role as co-editor and author of “Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World,” with Deborah Maranville, Carolyn Kaas and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, Matthew Bender 2015. In addition, Bliss has authored several other publications based upon her work in clinical legal education, medical-legal partnership and interdisciplinary education.
Bliss has held multiple leadership roles in professional organizations and has received several awards for her work. She is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Global Alliance for Justice Education, and is in her second three-year term as co-president. In 2017, she chaired the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education, on which she served for six years. During her tenure as Chair, the section received the Section of the Year Award. Bliss also served two terms on the board of directors of the Clinical Legal Education Association. In recognition of her achievements and service to her profession, Bliss received the Georgia State University Faculty Award for Exceptional Service in 2016. In 2014, Bliss received the M. Shanara Gilbert Award from the Association of American Law Schools Section on Clinical Legal Education in recognition of her outstanding contributions to clinical legal education, including her teaching, service and international clinical work.
Bliss has trained law teachers internationally, particularly in countries in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam, where she has worked to develop and strengthen experiential education and law school clinics. In 2012 and 2013, Bliss served as an international clinician in residence in Thailand for Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia Community Legal Education Initiative. In 2013, Bliss was a trainer for the first national clinical legal education training in Yangon, Myanmar, and in 2014 she was a trainer for the first National Clinical Legal Education Summer School in Taunggyi, Myanmar. Bliss also taught at the National Law University in Delhi, India under the government’s Global Initiative of Academic Networks. Bliss has given workshops on teaching in the Philippines, Spain, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, England, Italy, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
Bliss is a member of the Center for Law, Health, and Society and teaches Health Law Partnership Clinic, and Interviewing and Counseling. Visit her SSRN Author page here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=358282
- Publications
Kate Seear, Lisa Bliss, Paula Galowitz & Catherine F. Klein (2019) Exploring the role of emotions in clinical legal education: inquiry and results from an international workshop for legal educators, The Law Teacher, 53:4, 487-499, DOI: 10.1080/03069400.2019.1667087
Reimagining Clinical Legal Education, (Linden Thomas, Steven Vaughan, Bharat Malkani and Theresa Lynch, Hart Publishing 2018) (Authored Chapter 12, Reflections on Reimagining Clinical Legal Education: The U.S. Perspective).
Beryl Blaustone and Lisa Bliss, The Role of the Lawyer and the Essential Skills to Teach Law Students in an Era of Fake News, “Alternative Facts,” and Governing by Disruption, 19 Loy. J. Pub. Int. L. 140 (2018).
Lisa Radtke Bliss, Book Review, 1 J. Legal Ed. 67 (Autumn 2017) (reviewing Leah Wortham, et al., Learning From Practice: A Text for Experiential Legal Education).
Leslie Wolf, Stacie Kershner, and Lisa Bliss, A Concentrated Certificate Program Incorporating Experiential Education: Helping Students Prepare for a Career in the Dynamic Area of Health Law, Int’l J. of Clinical Legal Ed, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2017).
Robert Pettignano, MD, MBA, Lisa Bliss, Susan McLaren, MPH, and Sylvia Caley, MBA, RN, Interprofessional Medical-Legal Education of Medical Students: Assessing the Benefits for Addressing Social Determinants of Health, Academic Medicine, https://bit.ly/2OnzluS, 2017.
Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World (Deborah Maranville, Carolyn Kaas, Lisa Bliss and Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez eds., LexisNexis Publishing, 2015). (Co-authored the following sections: Incorporating Experiential Education Throughout the Curriculum, Delivering Effective Education in In-House Clinics, Interprofessional Education, and A Conscious Institutional Strategy for Expanding Experiential Education.)
Sylvia B. Caley, Lisa Bliss and Robert Pettignano, MD, Speaking Their Language: Developing a Scorecard for Medical-Legal Partnerships to Balance Quality and Productivity, 5 vol. 3 Int’l J. of Health, Wellness and Soc’y, 9¬–17 (2015).
Clinical Legal Education in Asia: Accessing Justice for the Underprivileged (Palgrave Publishing, 2015) (Co-author, chapter “Thai Clinical Legal Education,” Dr. Panarairat Srichaiyarat, Lisa Bliss and Withoon Taloodkum)
Robert Pettignano, MD, Lisa Radtke Bliss, and Sylvia Caley, The Health Law Partnership: A Medical-Legal Partnership Strategically Designed to Provide a Coordinated Approach to Public Health Legal Services, Education, Advocacy, Evaluation, Research and Scholarship, 35 J. Legal Med. 57–79 (2014).
Lisa Radtke Bliss, Lessons Learned from Teaching Clinical Legal Education in Thailand, 63 J. Legal Educ. 524–531 (2014).
Lisa Radtke Bliss and Supamas Chinvinikjul, Preparing Law Students for Global Practice: An Innovative Model for Teaching Lawyering Skills and Social Justice in a Large Enrollment Law Course, 1 Asian J. Legal Educ. 1 (2014).
Lisa Radtke Bliss, International Clinical Legal Education Perspectives: How Teaching Abroad Makes Us Better Clinicians, Newsletter of the Clinical Legal Education Association, Volume 22, Issue 1 (Spring 2014).
Legal Education in Asia (Eleven International Publishing, 2014) (Co-author, chapter
“Moving into the Future: Legal Education in Thailand,” Lisa Radtke Bliss, Sopit Cheevapanich, Damorn Kumtrai, and Panarairat Srichayarat)
Robert Pettignano, Lisa Radtke Bliss, Sylvia B. Caley, and Susan McLaren, Can Access to a Medical-Legal Partnership Benefit Patients with Asthma Who Live in an Urban Community?, 24 No. 2 J. Health Care for the Poor and Underserved (May 2013) (Peer Reviewed).
Lisa Radtke Bliss, Robert Pettignano, MD, and Sylvia Caley, Bridging the Quality Gap with Medical-Legal Partnerships, Physician’s Executive Journal 44–49 (May/June 2013).
Robert Pettignano, MD, Lisa Radtke Bliss and Sylvia Caley, Collaborative Diagnosis: Interdisciplinary Problem-solving Between Physicians and Lawyers, 2 Int’l J. Health, Wellness and Society 37–41 (2013) (Peer Reviewed).
Lisa Radtke Bliss, Sylvia Caley, and Robert Pettignano, MD, A Model for Interdisciplinary Clinical Education: Medical and Legal Professionals Learning and Working Together to Promote Public Health, 18 Int’l J. Clinical L. Educ. 99 (2012) (Peer Reviewed).
Lisa Radtke Bliss and Sylvia Caley, Exploring Cultural Competence in the Context of Medical-Legal Partnerships, in Recent Developments in Health Care Law: Culture and Controversy, 25 HEC Forum 14-24 (2012) (Peer Reviewed).
Emily A. Benfer, John Ammann, Lisa Radtke Bliss, Sylvia Caley, Elizabeth Tobin Tyler, and Robert Pettignano, MD, Advancing Health Law & Social Justice in the Clinic, the Classroom and the Community, 21 Annals of Health Law 237–56 (2012).
Robert Pettignano, MD, Sylvia Caley, and Lisa Radtke Bliss, A Case for Including Lawyers on the Care Team, Physician Executive J. 34–38 (March-April 2011).
Lisa Radtke Bliss, Sylvia Caley, and Robert Pettignano, MD, Client and Patient Relationships: Understanding Cultural and Social Context, in Poverty, Health and the Law: Readings and Cases for Medical-Legal Partnership (Elizabeth Tobin Tyler, et al. eds., Carolina Academic Press 2011).
Lisa Radtke Bliss, Sylvia Caley, and Robert Pettignano, MD, An Interdisciplinary Collaborative Approach to Wellness: Adding Lawyers to the Healthcare Team to Provide Integrated Care for Patients, 1 Int’l J. Health, Wellness and Society 129–39 (2011) (Peer Reviewed).
Robert Pettignano, MD, Lisa Radtke Bliss, and Sylvia Caley, Medical-Legal Partnership: Impact on Patients with Sickle Cell Disease, 128 Pediatrics e1 (2011).
Lisa Radtke Bliss, Looking at the Initial Client Meeting through an Interdisciplinary Lens: Applying Lessons from the Medical Profession to Law Teaching and Practice, The Law Teacher (Inst. for Law Teaching and Learning), Spring 2010.
Lisa Radtke Bliss and Sylvia Caley, Medical-Legal Partnerships Connecting Law and Health Care to Improve the Health and Well-being of Low-Income Children: Promising Initiatives, 20 HEC Forum 102–06 (2010) (Peer Reviewed).
Rachel Arnow-Richman, Lisa Radtke Bliss, et al., Teaching Transactional Skills in Upper-Level Doctrinal Courses: Three Exemplars, in Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law, Special Report 2009 at 367.