Valarie Blake

Education

• B.S., University of Pittsburgh, 2005
• J.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Law, 2009
• M.A., Case Western Reserve University, 2011

Awards

• 2023 WVU College of Law Professor of the Year

• 2020 WVU Law Significant Scholarship Award
• 2018-2019 Chair, AALS Disability Law Section
  
• 2017 Selected Scholar for AALS Works-in-Progress for New Law School Teachers program organized by the Section on Law, Medicine and Health Care
• 2015 Recipient of Saint Louis University/American Society for Law Medicine and Ethics Health Scholars Award

Biography

Valarie K. Blake is a professor law at WVU focusing on health care law. Before joining the WVU College of Law faculty in fall 2015, she was a visiting professor at Duquesne School of Law. Prior to that, she served as an ethics senior research associate for the American Medical Association (AMA), where she engaged in research and policy-making efforts related to the AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics. She has also worked at the Cleveland Clinic as an advanced bioethics fellow providing bedside ethics consultation, research teaching, and service in the areas of law, ethics, and professionalism.

Professor Blake’s scholarly research is on the intersections between health care delivery and ethics. She is particularly interested in how increasing state and federal regulation of health care financing and delivery will impact chronic disease, health insurance, and professionalism in medicine.

Publications, Research, and Intellectual Contributions

For the most current list of publications, visit the professor's SSRN page.

• Employer-Sponsored Reproduction, 124 Columbia L. Rev. ___ (2024) (with Elizabeth McCuskey).
  
• Employer Benefits and Abortion Coverage: Private Law’s Role in Reproductive Freedom (forthcoming Harvard book volume) (with Elizabeth McCuskey)
  

• Rewritten Opinion, Doe v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Co.., in Seema Mohapatra and Lindsay F. Wiley, FEMINIST JUDGMENTS: REWRITTEN HEALTH LAW OPINIONS (edited collection) (Cambridge University Press 2022).

• Health Care Civil Rights Under Medicare for All, 72 Hastings L. J. 773 (2021) 
  


• Sex Discrimination in Health Care: LGBTQ Rights After Bostock, ___ California Law Review Online ___ (forthcoming 2021)(co-authored with Amy Post & Ashley Stephens).
  
• Ensuring an Underclass: Stigma in Insurance, 41 Cardozo L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2020). 
  
• Regulating Care Robots, 92 Temple L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2020). 
  
• Seeking Insurance Parity During the Opioid Epidemic, 2019  Utah L. Rev. 1 (2019).  
• Legal Remedies to Address Stigma-Based Health Inequalities in the United States: Opportunities and Challenges, 97 Milbank Q. 480 (2019)
• Restoring Civil Rights to the Disabled in Health Insurance (vol. 96). Nebraska L. Rev. (2017).
• An Opening for Civil Rights in Health Insurance After the Affordable Care Act (vol. 36, pp. 235). BCJL & Soc. Just. (2016).
• Civil Rights as Treatment for Health Insurance Discrimination. Wis. L. Rev. Forward(online). (2016).
• Engaging Health Insurers in the War on Prescription Painkillers, Harvard L. & Pol’y Rev. (2017).
• Restoring Civil Rights to the Disabled in Health Insurance, Nebraska L. Rev. (2017)
• Remedying Stigma-Driven Health Disparities in Sexual Minorities, Houston J. Health L. & Pol’y (invited symposium manuscript, 2017)
• An Opening for Civil Rights in Health Insurance After the Affordable Care Act, 36 Boston College J. L. & Social Justice 2 (2016)
• Valarie K. Blake, Michelle McGowan & Aaron D. Levine, Conflicts of Interest and Effective Oversight of Assisted Reproduction using Donated Oocytes,_J. L. MED. & ETHICS (Summer 2015)
• Kavita Shah Arora & Valarie K. Blake. Uterus Transplantation: The Ethics of Moving the Womb 125 OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY 1 (April 2015)
• Narrow Networks, the Very Sick, and the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act: Recalling the Purpose of Health Insurance and Reform, 16 MINN. J. L. SCI. & TECH. 63 (2015)
• Ovaries, and Testicles, and Uteruses, Oh My! Regulating Reproductive Tissue Transplants, 19 WM. & MARY J. WOMEN & L. 353 (2013)
• It’s an ART Not a Science: State Mandated Insurance Coverage of Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Legal Implications for Gay and Unmarried Persons, 12 MINN. J. L. SCI. & TECH. 651 (2011)

Books

• Health Care Law (Learning Series) (West Academic Press) (forthcoming 2024) (with Zack Buck and Seema Mohapatra)
  
• Lexis Civil Rights & Strategy Series: Federal Health Care Law (single author book that is part of a three-part series for Lexis on civil rights in health care, housing, and education) (LexisNexis 2020).

Teaching Experience

• Professor, West Virginia University College of Law, August 2020
• Associate Professor, West Virginia University College of Law, August 2015
• Visiting Assistant Professor, Duquesne University School of Law, 2013-2015

Professional Experience

• Senior Research Associate, American Medical Association, May 2011-July 2013
• Advanced Bioethics Fellow, Cleveland Clinic, July 2009-April 2011