CPIL’s Administrative Director Bridget Gramme ’03 (JD), ’98 (BS) Quoted in Los Angeles Times

SAN DIEGO (July 6, 2021) – University of San Diego (USD) School of Law Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL), Administrative Director Bridget Gramme was quoted in an editorial in the Los Angeles Times on the current physician member majority for the Medical Board of California and the antitrust issues it faces by the Legislature not reforming it to be a public member majority.

Recently, the Board has joined a number of experts and advocates in urging the state Legislature to reform the Board member majority, giving control to public members. Having a majority of non-physicians on the board could give the public more confidence that the board is focused on protecting healthcare consumers, not healthcare providers.

According to the article, Bridget Fogarty Gramme, director of CPIL at USD School of Law, offered another compelling reason to give public members a majority on the board: to avoid the risk of antitrust lawsuits. The Supreme Court held six years ago that licensing boards run by people who work in the industry they regulate can be sued for antitrust violations if they’re not subject to “active supervision” by state officials. That’s arguably the case here, where the doctors on the medical board decide who can and cannot practice in California.

CPIL also has called for the state to appoint a temporary enforcement monitor to audit the board’s enforcement process, as the state did almost two decades ago. SB 806 declares the Legislature’s intent to appoint a temporary monitor, but it wouldn’t actually make it happen, and that’s a problem.

To read the full editorial by The Times Editorial Board in Los Angeles Times, click here.

About Center for Public Interest Law

Founded in 1980, the University of San Diego School of Law’s Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) serves as an academic center of research and advocacy in regulatory and public interest law. CPIL focuses its efforts on the study of an extremely powerful, yet often overlooked, level of government: state regulatory agencies. Under the supervision of experienced public interest attorneys and advocates, CPIL law student interns study California agencies that regulate business, professions, and trades.

CPIL publishes the California Regulatory Law Reporter, a unique legal journal that covers the activities and decisions of over 12 major California regulatory agencies.

In addition to its academic program, CPIL has an advocacy component. Center faculty, professional staff, and interns represent the interests of the unorganized and underrepresented in California’s legislature, courts, and regulatory agencies. CPIL attempts to make the regulatory functions of California government more efficient and visible by serving as a public monitor of state regulatory activity. The Center has been particularly active in reforming the state’s professional discipline systems for attorneys and physicians, and in advocating public interest reforms to the state’s open meetings and public records statutes.

About the University of San Diego School of Law

Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world.  The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates.  The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 36th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 22nd nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.