Carl E. Schneider

Carl E. Schneider, of Michigan, was nominated May 18, 2006, by President George W. Bush to be a Member of the President's Council on Bioethics, for the remainder of a two-year term expiring January 15, 2008.

Profiles

Carl E. Schneider is the Chauncey Stillman Professor for Ethics, Morality, and the Practice of Law and is a Professor of Internal Medicine" at the University of Michigan Law School.

According to his University of Michigan biography, Schneider was "educated at Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, where he was editor in chief of the Michigan Law Review. He served as law clerk to Judge Carl McGowan of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court. He became a member of the Law School faculty in 1981 and of the Medical School faculty in 1998.

"Professor Schneider has written extensively in several fields, including bioethics, professional ethics, professional education, family law, and constitutional law. He recently [2002] published (with Marsha Garrison) a casebook titled The Law of Bioethics: Individual Autonomy and Social Regulation [ISBN 0314252215]. He is the author of The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors, and Medical Decisions (Oxford University Press, 1998) [ISBN 0195113977], which examines how power to make medical decisions is and should be divided between doctors and patients and which analyzes the role of autonomy in American culture. As one reviewer said of the book, it uncovers a 'great hole . . . for all to see: the failure of autonomy not only as reality but even as ideal.'

"In addition, he is preparing a book arguing that the empirical literature demonstrates that the policy of promoting the use of living wills in end-of-life decisions has failed and can only fail.

"Professional education is another of Professor Schneider's interests. He has lectured and written about legal education in several countries. He is the author of an innovative family law casebook – An Invitation to Family Law (West, 1996)(with Margaret F. Brinig) – a second edition was published in 2000 [ISBN 0314248579].

"The courses Professor Schneider teaches include law and medicine, the sociology and ethics of the legal profession, family law, and property. He has been a visiting professor at Cambridge University, the University of Tokyo, and Kyoto University and has taught for many years in Germany."