Richard Bonnie teaches both law and medicine at the University of Virginia. He is the Director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy and the Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law and at University of Virginia School of Law. He also teaches public policy, psychiatry, and neurobehavioral sciences.
Professor Bonnie serves as an Associate Reporter on the ALI’s Restatement of the Law, Children and the Law project.
His scholarship and research focus on criminal law, bioethics, and public policies relating to mental health, substance abuse, aging, and public health. Among many other positions, he has been associate director of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse (1971-73); secretary of the first National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse (1975-80); chair of Virginia's Human Rights Committee responsible for protecting rights of persons with mental disabilities (1979-85), chief advisor for the ABA Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards Project (1981-88), and chair of the Commission on Mental Health Law Reform established by the chief justice of Virginia (2006-11).
EDUCATION: Johns Hopkins University, B.A.; University of Virginia School of Law, LL.B.