Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Lars Noah

Chesterfield Smith Eminent Scholar Chair
Professor of Law

Expertise

Constitutional Law and Civil Rights  • Medical Technology  • Public Health Law  • S.T.E.M. subjects  • Tort Law  • 

About

Lars Noah is the Chesterfield Smith Eminent Scholar Chair and Professor of Law at the University of Florida, where he has taught courses in Administrative Law, Medical Technology, Public Health Law, and Torts, among other subjects.  Professor Noah has published more than eighty scholarly articles on a wide range of subjects as well as a casebook that focuses on the regulation of pharmaceuticals and medical devices: Law, Medicine, and Medical Technology (Foundation Press 5th ed. 2022). As something of a bookend to that volume, Professor Noah has now also penned (again unaided) Law and the Public’s Health: Cases, Controversies, and Covid-19 (Carolina Academic Press 2023). He has served as a visiting professor at Georgetown, Texas, Vanderbilt, George Washington, U.C. Hastings, and Washington & Lee; has worked with expert committees at the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health; and recently was named as a member of UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute.  Before entering academia in 1994, Professor Noah clerked for Chief Judge Ab Mikva on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then practiced law for three years at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.

Education

J.D., Harvard University (magna cum laude)
B.A., Harvard University (magna cum laude)

Courses

  • Medical Technology
  • Public Health Law
  • Torts

Publications

Books

  • LAW AND THE PUBLIC’S HEALTH: CASES, CONTROVERSIES & COVID-19 (Carolina Academic Press 2023).
  • LAW, MEDICINE, AND MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY: CASES & MATERIALS (Foundation Press 5th ed. 2022).
  • LAW, MEDICINE, AND MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY: CASES & MATERIALS (Foundation Press 4th ed. 2017).
  • LAW, MEDICINE, AND MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY: CASES & MATERIALS (Foundation Press 3d ed. 2012).
  • LAW, MEDICINE, AND MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY: CASES & MATERIALS (Foundation Press 2d ed. 2007).
  • LAW, MEDICINE, AND MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY: CASES & MATERIALS (Foundation Press 2002).

Selected Articles

  • “Market Shift Liability” for Generic Drugs: Market Share Theory’s Eccentric New Cousin, 92 Tenn. L. Rev. (forthcoming Apr. 2025).
  • Flaws in the Preemption Defense to Liability Claims Against Generic Drug Manufacturers, 79 U. Miami L. Rev. (forthcoming Apr. 2025).
  • “Major Questions” Malarkey: An Arbitrary and Capricious New Doctrine for Vetoing Controversial Agency Rules, 97 St. John’s L. Rev. (forthcoming Nov. 2024).
  • Eliding Consent in the Case of Pandemic Countermeasures Authorized for Emergency Use, 58 Ind. L. Rev. 83 (2024).
  • Does Federal Preemption Inoculate Us Against the Alarming Prospect of State Vaccine Bans?, 100 Ind. L.J. Supp. 1 (2024).
  • Preempting Red State Restrictions on the Use of FDA-Approved Drugs in Gender-Affirming Care?, 2024 Utah L. Rev. 833 (2024).
  • Must Courts Recalibrate Tort Law Governing Firearms in Light of the Second Amendment?, 92 U. Cin. L. Rev. 412 (2023).
  • Listening to Mifepristone, 80 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L. 33 (2023).
  • Time to Bite the Bullet?: How an Emboldened FDA Could Take Aim at the Firearms Industry, 53 Conn. L. Rev. 787 (2022).
  • Confronting the Inevitability of Diagnostic Uncertainty Across Multiple Legal Domains, in Diagnoses Without Names 59 (2022).
  • Censorship Is So Last Century: Therapeutic Products, Propaganda, and Compelled Speech, 66 St. Louis U. L.J. 79 (2021).
  • State Regulatory Responses to the Prescription Opioid Crisis: Too Much to Bear?, 124 Dick. L. Rev. 633 (2020).
  • Banning Off-Label Drug Promotion Offends the U.S. Constitution: Making the Strongest Case, 83 Alb. L. Rev. 301 (2020).
  • Does the U.S. Constitution Constrain State Products Liability Doctrine?, 92 Temp. L. Rev. 189 (2019).
  • Federal Regulatory Responses to the Prescription Opioid Crisis: Too Little, Too Late?, 2019 Utah L. Rev. 757 (2019).
  • Giving Personal Injury Attorneys Who Run Misleading Drug Ads a Dose of Their Own Medicine, 2019 U. Ill. L. Rev. 791 (2019).
  • Doctors on the Take: Aligning Tort Law to Address Drug Company Payments to Prescribers, 66 Buff. L. Rev. 855 (2018).
  • Reversal of Fortune: Moving Pharmaceuticals from Over-the-Counter to Prescription Status?, 63 Vill. L. Rev. 355 (2018).
  • “Go Sue Yourself!” Imagining Intrapersonal Liability for Negligently Self-Inflicted Harms, 70 Fla. L. Rev. 649 (2018).
  • When Constitutional Tailoring Demands the Impossible: Unrealistic Scrutiny of Agencies?, 85 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1462 (2017).
  • State Affronts to Federal Primacy in the Licensure of Pharmaceutical Products, 2016 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1 (2016).
  • Growing Organs in the Lab: Tissue Engineers Confront Institutional “Immune” Responses, 55 Jurimetrics J. 297 (2015).
  • Product Hopping 2.0: Getting the FDA to Yank Your Original License Beats Stacking Patents, 19 Marq. Intell. Prop. L. Rev. 161 (2015).
  • Governance by the Backdoor: Administrative Law(lessness?) at the FDA, 93 Neb. L. Rev. 89 (2014).
  • Permission to Speak Freely?, 162 U. Pa. L. Rev. Online 248 (2014).
  • Genetic Modification and Food Irradiation: Are Those Strictly on a Need-to-Know Basis?, 118 Penn. St. L. Rev. 759 (2014).
  • Turn the Beat Around?: Deactivating Implanted Cardiac-Assist Devices, 39 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 1229 (2013).
  • Whatever Happened to the “Frankenfish”?: The FDA’s Foot-Dragging on Transgenic Salmon, 65 Me. L. Rev. 606 (2013).
  • Truth or Consequences?: Commercial Free Speech vs. Public Health Promotion (at the FDA), 21 Health Matrix 31 (2011).
  • Coerced Participation in Clinical Trials: Conscripting Human Research Subjects, 62 Admin. L. Rev. 329 (2010).
  • Adding Insult to Injury: Paying for Harms Caused by a Competitor’s Copycat Product, 45 Tort Trial & Ins. Prac. L.J. 673 (2010).
  • Comfortably Numb: Medicalizing (and Mitigating) Pain-and-Suffering Damages, 42 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 431 (2009).
  • This Is Your Products Liability Restatement on Drugs, 74 Brook. L. Rev. 839 (2009).
  • Platitudes About “Product Stewardship” in Torts: Continuing Drug Research and Education, 15 Mich. Tel. & Tech. L. Rev. 359 (2009).
  • The Little Agency That Could (Act with Indifference to Constitutional and Statutory Strictures), 93 Cornell L. Rev. 901 (2008).
  • Too High a Price for Some Drugs?: The FDA Burdens Reproductive Choice, 44 San Diego L. Rev. 231 (2007).
  • Treat Yourself: Is Self-Medication the Prescription for What Ails American Health Care?, 19 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 359 (2006).
  • Managing Biotechnology’s [R]evolution: Has Guarded Enthusiasm Become Benign Neglect?, 11 Va. J.L. & Tech. 4 (2006).
  • An Inventory of Mathematical Blunders in Applying the Loss-of-a-Chance Doctrine, 24 Rev. Litig. 369 (2005).
  • Medical Education and Malpractice: What’s the Connection?, 15 Health Matrix 149 (2005).
  • Ambivalent Commitments to Federalism in Controlling the Practice of Medicine, 53 U. Kan. L. Rev. 149 (2004).
  • A Postmodernist Take on the Human Embryo Research Debate, 36 Conn. L. Rev. 1133 (2004).
  • Deputizing Institutional Review Boards to Police (Audit?) Biomedical Research, 25 J. Legal Med. 267 (2004).
  • Letter, Trends in Assisted Reproductive Technology, 351 New Eng. J. Med. 398 (2004).
  • Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Pitfalls of Unregulated Biomedical Innovation, 55 Fla. L. Rev. 603 (2003).
  • Challenges in the Federal Regulation of Pain Management Technologies, 31 J.L. Med. & Ethics 55 (2003).
  • Triage in the Nation’s Medicine Cabinet: The Puzzling Scarcity of Vaccines and Other Drugs, 54 S.C. L. Rev. 741 (2003).
  • Letter, Pharmacogenetics, 348 New Eng. J. Med. 2042 (2003).
  • The Coming Pharmacogenomics Revolution: Tailoring Drugs to Fit Patients’ Genetic Profiles, 43 Jurimetrics J. 1 (2002).
  • Informed Consent and the Elusive Dichotomy Between Standard and Experimental Therapy, 28 Am. J.L. & Med. 361 (2002).
  • Medicine’s Epistemology: Mapping the Haphazard Diffusion of Knowledge in the Biomedical Community, 44 Ariz. L. Rev. 373 (2002).
  • Letter, Attorney General’s Intrusion into Clinical Practice, 346 New Eng. J. Med. 1918 (2002).
  • Letter, Standards for Medical Expert Testimony, 288 JAMA 2971 (2002).
  • Civil Jury Nullification, 86 Iowa L. Rev. 1601 (2001).
  • A Miscarriage in the Drug Approval Process?: Mifepristone Embroils the FDA in Abortion Politics, 36 Wake Forest L. Rev. 571 (2001).
  • Rewarding Regulatory Compliance: The Pursuit of Symmetry in Products Liability, 88 Geo. L.J. 2147 (2000).
  • Interpreting Agency Enabling Acts: Misplaced Metaphors in Administrative Law, 41 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1463 (2000).
  • Scientific “Republicanism”: Expert Peer Review and the Quest for Regulatory Deliberation, 49 Emory L.J. 1033 (2000).
  • Divining Regulatory Intent: The Place for a “Legislative History” of Agency Rules, 51 Hastings L.J. 255 (2000).
  • What’s Wrong with “Constitutionalizing Food and Drug Law”?, 75 Tul. L. Rev. 137 (2000).
  • Peer Review and Regulatory Reform, 30 Envtl. L. Rep. 10,606 (2000).
  • Pigeonholing Illness: Medical Diagnosis as a Legal Construct, 50 Hastings L.J. 241 (1999).
  • Doubts About Direct Final Rulemaking, 51 Admin. L. Rev. 401 (1999).
  • The Executive Line Item Veto and the Judicial Power to Sever: What’s the Difference?, 56 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 235 (1999).
  • Starting from Scratch?: Reinventing the Food Additive Approval Process, 78 B.U. L. Rev. 329 (1998).
  • Sanctifying Scientific Peer Review: Publication as a Proxy for Regulatory Decisionmaking, 59 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 677 (1998).
  • Authors, Publishers, and Products Liability: Remedies for Defective Information in Books, 77 Or. L. Rev. 1195 (1998).
  • Regulating Cigarettes: (Non)sense and Sensibility, 22 S. Ill. U. L.J. 677 (1998).
  • Administrative Arm-Twisting in the Shadow of Congressional Delegations of Authority, 1997 Wis. L. Rev. 873 (1997).
  • Advertising Prescription Drugs to Consumers: Assessing the Regulatory and Liability Issues, 32 Ga. L. Rev. 141 (1997).
  • The FDA’s New Policy on Guidelines: Having Your Cake and Eating It Too, 47 Cath. U. L. Rev. 113 (1997).
  • NAFTA’s Impact on the Trade in Pharmaceuticals, 33 Hous. L. Rev. 1293 (1997).
  • Reconceptualizing Federal Preemption of Tort Claims as the Government Standards Defense, 37 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 903 (1996).
  • Nicotine Withdrawal: Assessing the FDA’s Effort to Regulate Tobacco Products, 48 Ala. L. Rev. 1 (1996).
  • Sham Petitioning as a Threat to the Integrity of the Regulatory Process, 74 N.C. L. Rev. 1 (1995).
  • The Imperative to Warn: Disentangling the “Right to Know” from the “Need to Know” About Consumer Product Hazards, 11 Yale J. on Reg. 293 (1994).
  • Constraints on the Off-Label Uses of Prescription Drug Products, 16 J. Prods. & Toxics Liab. 139 (1994).
  • Amplification of Federal Preemption in Medical Device Cases, 49 Food & Drug L.J. 183 (1994).
  • Death of a Salesman: To What Extent Can the FDA Regulate Promotional Statements?, 47 Food & Drug L.J. 309 (1992).
  • Note, The Politics of En Banc Review, 102 Harv. L. Rev. 864 (1989).

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The Florida Constitutional Law Endowment in memory of Justice Ben F. Overton was created by Judge Karen Miller in 2013. This fund supports lectures and presentations by Justices of the Florida Supreme Court at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

HISTORY

Justice Overton, who earned his B.S. in 1951 and his Juris Doctor in 1952 from the University of Florida, was the first merit appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout his career he was active in legal education and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Levin College of Law through December 2012, the month of his death. Although he resided at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a continuing care retirement community developed in cooperation with UF, he also considered the Florida Supreme Court “home.” Among the high points of his later years was hosting Justices of the Florida Supreme Court in Gainesville and taking his class to Tallahassee to hear oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court.
Judge Miller, who earned her B.S. cum laude from New York University in 1974 and her Juris Doctor from New York Law School in 1977, served as Chief Administrative Law Judge of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City’s business regulatory agency, before she retired to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Having accompanied Justice Overton on his excursions to Tallahassee and joined him in welcoming guests to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, she created the endowment in memory of Justice Overton to ensure that the Levin College of Law continues to have the funding necessary to continue and enhance the interaction between its students and the Florida Supreme Court.

 

Judge Miller remembered the event that motivated the endowment.

 

Prior to a dinner at the home of Dean Robert Jerry and Lisa Jerry shortly after Justice Overton’s death, Justice Barbara Pariente and I were discussing a suitable memorial. Justice Pariente, who had been Justice Overton’s colleague on the Florida Supreme Court and who understood the importance to him of the interaction between his students and the Court, suggested the outline of what has become the Overton lectures. Dean Jerry, who has since retired, as has Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who assumed responsibility for implementing the Overton lectures, were very supportive from the beginning. Since Dean Mills’ retirement, Professor Timothy McClendon, who assisted both Justice Overton and Dean Mills teaching Florida Constitutional Law and who co-authored the recent Florida Constitutional Law casebook, has continued the Overton lectures with the support of Interim Dean Merritt McAlister and CGR director, Professor Danaya Wright.

Justice Overton was a devoted jurist, educator, and ethical leader of the Florida legal profession. The Overton Lecture Series brings Florida Supreme Court Justices to the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and serves to introduce students to the inner workings of the Court. CGR and the students of the College of Law extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Karen Miller for making the Overton Lectures possible in perpetuity.

You can watch an interview for the Florida Historical Society by Mary Adkins, professor emeritus of the UF Levin College of Law, with Justice Overton here.

Justice Overton was also interviewed for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Project and a transcript of his interview is available at the Smathers Library, and here.
Justice Overton sat on the Constitution Revision Commission of 1977-78 that proposed a right to privacy in the Florida Constitution. Although it failed as part of the Constitution Revision Commission recommendations, it passed in 1980 when proposed by the legislature. The bill was co-sponsored by our very own Jon Mills. The privacy provision prevailed by greater than 60%. Justice Overton then wrote a concurrence in a critical reproductive rights case in 1989 affirming that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution included the right to obtain an abortion. That decision was overruled in Planned Parenthood of SW and Central Florida v. Florida. You can read about the role of Justice Overton, Jon Mills – director emeritus of CGR, and the history of the 1989 case here.