Alison D. Morantz
- James and Nancy Kelso Professor of Law
- Director of SIDDLAPP
- Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research
- Room N235, Neukom Building
Expertise
- Disability Law
- Employment Law
- Law & Economics
- Public Policy & Empirical Studies
Biography
A scholar whose research has explored the law and economics of protective labor regulation, intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD), and workers’ compensation, Alison D. Morantz seeks to parse the real-world effects of legal and policy reform. Her recent work has examined the relationship between ownership status and the quality of care in facilities serving the intellectually disabled, how statistical techniques can be used to target the most hazardous workplaces, the effects of unionization on mine safety, and the law and economics of workers’ compensation.
Morantz is the Director of the Stanford Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Law and Policy Project (SIDDLAPP), an interdisciplinary initiative examining the rights and welfare of individuals with I/DD. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), and has been the principal investigator of multi–year research projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. In the spring of 2010, she was one of four experts appointed, at Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis’s request, to a federal panel that provided an independent analysis of the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s internal review following the explosion at Upper Big Branch Mine on April 5, 2010, that claimed 29 miners’ lives.
After graduating from Harvard-Radcliffe College in 1993, Morantz earned a JD from Yale Law School and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. She clerked for Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and worked as a union–side labor lawyer and antidiscrimination advocate in Boston, before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2004.
Education
- BA Harvard University 1993
- MSc (Economics of Development) University of Oxford 1995
- JD Yale Law School 2000
- PhD (Economics) Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2001
Related Organizations
Affiliations & Honors
- National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health – Research Contract No. 200–2009–28820 (2009–12). Designing a Pilot Program for Strategic Mine Safety and Health Improvements through the Use of Surveillance Data to Guide Targeted Inspection Activities. Principal Investigator. Award Amount: $619,814.
- National Science Foundation – Grant No. 0850636 (2009–11). Swapping Regulation for Litigation: The Effects of Workers' Compensation Opt–Out on the Injury Claims of Large Multi–State Firms. Principal Investigator. Award Amount: $207,974.
- American Society for Legal History – Surrency Prize (2007) (awarded for There's No Place Like Home: Homestead Exemption and Judicial Constructions of "Family" in Nineteenth–Century America, 24 LAW & HISTORY REVIEW 1 (Summer 2006)).
- Workers' Compensation Research Institute – John Jones Scholarship (2005). Awarded to scholars whose research will contribute to knowledge in the field of workers' compensation. Co–recipient (with Alexandre Mas). Award amount: $10,000.
- Center to Protect Workers' Rights – Small Study Grant No. 02–1–PS (2002–2003). Award amount: $20,000. New Methods for OSHA Enforcement in the Construction Industry. Co–investigator (with David Weil, Principal Investigator).
- National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Pre–Doctoral Fellowship in Aging and Health Economics (2000–2001) and Project Development Award (2001–2002).
- World Health Organization – sponsored study (2000–2001). Designing and Implementing an Effective Legal Strategy for the Enforcement of a Vaccine Purchase–Commitment Contract. Co–author (with Robert Sloane).
Professional Memberships & Research Affiliations
Massachusetts Bar- National Employment Lawyers Association
- Labor and Employment Relations Association
- American Economic Association
- American Law & Economics Association
- Society for Empirical Legal Studies
The mission of the Stanford Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Law and Policy Project (SIDDLAPP) is to promote student engagement, stimulate rigorous policy analysis and academic research, and spearhead legal advocacy on issues pertaining to the rights and welfare of individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD). Our faculty affiliates share the conviction that many problems in the I/DD law and policy arena are best approached from an interdisciplinary perspective. We encourage the exchange of ideas and ongoing collaboration between academic researchers and the diverse stakeholders that comprise the I/DD community.
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Regulating Rights for the Intellectual & Developmentally Disabled with Alison Morantz and Peter Vogel
Faculty on Point
Professor Alison Morantz on Rights for the Intellectual & Developmentally Disabled
News
Glaring gaps. Why mental health care can be a struggle for autistic youth
Los Angeles Times
Alison D. Morantz, director of the Stanford Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Law and Policy Project, called it a “scandal” that amid a scarcity of psychiatric beds for youth, “if a family member discloses that their child is on the autistic spectrum, they can say, ‘No thank you.’” “It puts parents…
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