Thomas W. Mayo, J.D., is Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Altschuler Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Professor of Law at the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Thomas Wm. Mayo was an associate with the Rochester, New York firm of Nixon, Hargrave, Devans & Doyle (now Nixon Peabody, LLP) after which he served as a law clerk to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He then practiced with the Washington, D.C., firm of Covington & Burling LLP in the areas of antitrust, securities fraud, election law, and communications. In addition to his position at SMU, Professor Mayo is an Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and is a co-principal investigator and past Director of SMU’s Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility (2005-10). He is a co-founder of the Legal Hospice of Texas, the state's first pro bono legal clinic for persons with HIV/AIDS and terminal illnesses. He was a member of the Council of the Health Law Section of the State Bar of Texas for 23 years and is a founding Fellow and past board member of the American Health Law Association, a Fellow in the Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture, and a recipient of the Dallas Medical Society’s Heath Award for his contributions to medicine and leadership in Dallas County. He was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 2012 and was the poetry columnist for the Dallas Morning News from 1998-2008.

Professor Mayo has previously taught Administrative Law, Business Torts, Civil Procedure, Comparative & International Health Law, Constitutional Law I & II, Election Law, Family Law, Federal Courts, First Amendment Seminar (team-taught), Land Use, Legislation, and Nonprofit Organizations and currently teaches Law & Medicine: Bioethics; Law & Medicine: Health Care; Law, Literature & Medicine; Legislation & Regulation, Public Health Law & Ethics, and Torts. He has received the law school's outstanding teacher award three times, as well as the University's outstanding volunteer award for community service, President's Associate award as the outstanding member of the tenured faculty, and the University's Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Award. He has given nearly 300 public lectures on health-law-related subjects and made nearly 2,000 media appearances around the world, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, BBC World Service Radio, The Economist, Anderson Cooper 360, NPR (Morning Edition, All Things Considered), MSNBC, CBS Evening News and NBC (Today, Nightly News).

• Publications

Area of expertise

• Bioethics
• Election Law
• Health Law
• Non-profit Organizations

Education

B.A., Amherst College
J.D., Syracuse University College of Law