Rachel Sachs
Treiman Professor of Law
Rachel Sachs is the Treiman Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, where she serves as Faculty Co-Director of the Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine and Law. Her scholarship explores the intersection of health law, food and drug regulation, and patent law, with a focus on pharmaceutical innovation and access. She has published in leading medical and legal journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and the Harvard Law Review. Before joining WashU, she clerked for Judge Richard A. Posner on the Seventh Circuit and was an Academic Fellow at Harvard's Petrie-Flom Center.
Teaching Style
Professor Sachs brings a deeply interdisciplinary approach to the classroom, drawing on her dual training in law and public health to illuminate complex questions about pharmaceutical regulation and healthcare policy. Her Socratic questioning is focused and efficient, often asking students to evaluate the real-world health impacts of legal and regulatory choices. She cold-calls regularly and expects students to engage with both the doctrinal framework and the policy consequences, connecting patent incentives to patient access and health outcomes.
Cold Call Tips
- 1Understand the basics of how the FDA approval process works and how it interacts with patent protections
- 2Be prepared to discuss the tension between incentivizing pharmaceutical innovation and ensuring affordable access to medicines
- 3Follow current debates about drug pricing policy and be ready to connect them to class materials
- 4Think about health law issues from multiple stakeholder perspectives: patients, companies, regulators, and insurers
Areas of Expertise
Education
- J.D., Harvard Law School
- M.P.H., Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- A.B. in Bioethics, Princeton University
Notable Publications
- Publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Harvard Law Review
- Faculty Co-Director of the Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine and Law