From the moment my career shifted to health law, ethics, and policy issues over 2 decades ago, I’ve been a member of ASLME. ASLME provides invaluable services, information, and opportunities for relationship-building and partnership for practitioners, scholars, students, and others with interests in the field.  Its regional and national conferences are “must attend” events for health law aficionados.  Its journals like JLME provide some of the highest level scholarly and applied pieces of any source nationally. ASLME is my recommended destination for varied colleagues all across the nation who seek a primary base for professional and personal outreach and exchanges with top minds and skilled practitioners.

ASLME is my intellectual home. It’s been part of my career from the beginning. When I was a student and recent graduate, the cutting-edge, interdisciplinary articles in JLME and AJLM helped me stay on top of developments in the field. When I was a new legal scholar, ASLME provided crucial resources and networking opportunities. The interprofessional collaboration and exchange of ideas the society fosters through its conferences and publications keep me energized and ready to face the challenges of working in a dynamic and ever-changing field.

Life is an interdisciplinary project; ASLME is the one place filled with people who “get it.”  I prize the collegiality, the shared commitment to excellence in research and teaching, and the spontaneous combustion of mentorship that happens naturally at our conferences.  And I mean “spontaneous combustion” in the best possible way!

I am an ASLME member for three reasons. First, the quality of the scholarship that ASLME exposes me to is unparalleled. It ranges from highly theoretical, to cutting edge policy works. Through conferences and publications, I find ASLME consistently assembles thought leaders who shape and influence my own thinking about health, public health, and health care in ways no other organization does. Second, I am grateful for ASLME’s continued strong commitment to ethics. I depend on the ASLME to keep topics of health justice, precision medicine, and stigma, in sophisticated and timely ways. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the ASLME has a near magical way of convening a community of the most wonderful people. People in ASLME are serious about mentoring, generous with their time, and truly collaborative. Because of this organization, I am blessed to also call some of my most gifted professional colleagues, my friends.