Nisonger Institute 2026

Leslie P. Francis, PhD, JD

Leslie P. Francis, PhD., JD, holds joint appointments as Alfred C. Emery distinguished professor of law and distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Utah. Professor Francis was President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2015-2016. From 2015-2019 she served as the elected Secretary-General of the International Society for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. She is a past member of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and past co-chair of the Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security Subcommittee of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics. Professor Francis chairs the board of the Utah Disability Law Center and regularly provides pro bono representation for people who are the subject of guardianship petitions through a special program of the Utah State Bar and state courts. Her books include States of Health: Federalism and Bioethics, (co-authored with John Francis (Oxford 2024); Sustaining Surveillance: The Importance of Information for Public Health (co-authored with John Francis; Springer, 2021), The Patient as Victim and Vector: Ethics and Infectious Disease (co-authored with Battin, Jacobson, & Smith; Oxford University Press, 2010; reissued with a new preface 2021) and Privacy: What Everyone Needs to Know (co-authored with John Francis; Oxford, 2017). She edited the Oxford Handbook of Reproductive Ethics (Oxford University Press, January 2017) and is the author of many papers in the areas of disability law and ethics, privacy and data use, justice, and bioethics