Allison A. Schmitt is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Oregon School of Law. Her research and teaching focus on intellectual property, health law, artificial intelligence, and the regulation and commercialization of emerging technologies. Her scholarship examines how law, regulation, and private ordering shape the development and deployment of innovation, with particular attention to the life sciences, health care, and artificial intelligence.
Professor Schmitt’s recent scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Harvard Journal on Legislation, Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal, and Annals of Health Law and Life Sciences. Her current research includes projects examining experimental use and upstream innovation, the role of commercialization pathways in governing emerging technologies, AI licensing and private governance, and the use of FDA regulatory mechanisms.
Before joining the University of Oregon, Professor Schmitt founded the Life Sciences Law & Policy Center at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and served as its inaugural director. Her work at Berkeley brought together academics, practitioners, scientists, policymakers, and industry leaders to address emerging legal and policy issues in the life sciences.
Professor Schmitt previously practiced law at Covington & Burling LLP and Sidley Austin LLP. She also served as a law clerk to Judge Stanley R. Chesler of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and Judge Kathleen M. O’Malley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Professor Schmitt holds a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Duke University.
