Nina Kohn

Nina A. Kohn is the David M. Levy Professor of Law and Faculty Director of Online Education in the College of Law at Syracuse University. Kohn is also a faculty affiliate with the Syracuse University Aging Studies Institute.

Kohn is a member of the American Law Institute, and she serves as the Solomon Center Distinguished Scholar in Elder Law with the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School. She has served as a Visiting Professor at Yale Law School and at the University of Maine School of Law.

In her prior role as Associate Dean for Online Education, Kohn developed the College of Law’s online JD program (JDinteractive), the nation’s first fully interactive online JD program. In her current role as Faculty Director of Online Education, she guides the program’s ongoing development and supports faculty teaching online.

Professor Kohn’s scholarly research focuses on elder law and the civil rights of older adults and persons with diminished cognitive capacity. Her work has appeared in diverse fora including the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, and the Washington Post. Her recent articles have addressed family caregiving, supported and surrogate decision-making, financial exploitation of the elderly, vulnerability and discrimination in old age, the practical and constitutional implications of elder abuse legislation, the potential for an elder rights movement, and legal education.

She authored the textbook Elder Law: Practice, Policy & Problems (Wolters Kluwer, 2d ed. 2020). Consistent with her research interests, Professor Kohn has taught elder law, family law, trusts and estates, torts, and an interdisciplinary gerontology course.

Professor Kohn has served in a variety of public interest roles, including as Reporter for the Third Revision of the Uniform Guardianship and Protective Proceedings Act. She currently serves as the Reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s Study Group on the Uniform Health Care Decisions Act, Co-Chair of the Elder Rights Committee of the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section of the American Bar Association; Co-Director of the Aging, Law, and Society Collaborative Research Network; and Vice Chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Mental Disability.

Professor Kohn earned an A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard University. She clerked for the Honorable Fred I. Parker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Following her clerkship, she was awarded a fellowship by the Skadden Fellowship Foundation to provide direct representation to nursing home residents and frail elders. She is a past recipient of Syracuse University College of Law’s Res Ipsa Loquitur award recognizing excellence in teaching, and Syracuse University’s Judith Greenberg Seinfeld Distinguished Faculty Fellowship.