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Judge J. Phil Gilbert is a member of the final round bench for the 2011 National Health Law Moot Court Competition. He currently serves as a federal judge for the Southern District of Illinois. He was nominated for the federal district court by President Bush and confirmed in 1992.
Judge Gilbert had previously served as an Illinois circuit judge beginning in January 1988, when he was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court. He won election to the judgeship in November 1988. Admitted to the bar in 1974, Judge Gilbert is a 1974 graduate of Loyola University School of Law, Chicago. His law career began as a partner with his father and his uncle in the firm of Gilbert and Gilbert. He was a special assistant to the Illinois attorney general in the public aid enforcement division from 1974-75 and then served as Carbondale's assistant city attorney for three years. From 1983-88 he was a partner in the firm of Gilbert, Kimmel, Huffman & Prosser Ltd.
Judge John D. Tinder was appointed and confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2007. Previously, (since 1987), he had served as a judge with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Judge Tinder was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1950. He received his undergraduate degree in 1972 from Indiana University and his law degree in 1975 from Indiana University School of Law. He was a law clerk for the U.S. Attorney in Indianapolis in 1974 and then the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana through 1977. Thereafter, he was in private practice until 1984, working in the law firm of Harrison & Moberly LLP in Indianapolis. He was also the public defender for the Marion County Criminal Court form 1977 to 1978. From 1984 to 1987, he was United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana.
Gary Birnbaum, MD, JD, FCLM, is a Fellow of the American College of Legal Medicine. He is the current President of the America College of Legal Medicine.
Dr. Birnbaum has previously served as Program Chair for annual conferences, as Chair of the Educational committee and co - authored an ACLM amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Kentucky's "any willing provider statute." In addition to being a member of the Executive Committee for the last four years.
During 2009 - 2010, Gary served as chief of staff at Hillcrest Hospital, Cleveland Clinic Health Systems, Mayfield Heights, Ohio overseeing a staff of almost a thousand physicians. His medical practice focuses on primary care, especially cardiovascular risk reduction. He is board certified as a Diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Lipidology as well as the American Board of Emergency Medicine.
Gary received his MD from the New York University School of Medicine and completed his emergency medicine residency at the University of Chicago. He received his JD, magna cum laude from the Cleveland Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Legal Medicine.
Bethany Spielman, PhD., J.D., M.H.A., a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, is Professor of health law and medical ethics at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, and is cross appointed to the SIU Law School.
She is the author of numerous bioethics and law articles, as well as Bioethics in Law (2007), editor of Organ and Tissue Donation: Ethical Legal and Policy Issues (1996), and editor of the journal Medicolegal
and Bioethics. Her research has been covered in the New York Times, reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine, and cited by the U.S. Institute of Medicine as well as Ireland's Office of Children and Youth Affairs. Her work on international clinical trials and the Alien Tort Statute is forthcoming in Glen Cohen,Ed., Global Health Law (Oxford University Press).