Law, Health, and Family Wellbeing
across institutions and national borders
I am a scholar and attorney. I study how legal institutions shape families, health, and justice. Drawing on family law, health law, legal history, and comparative law, my scholarship traces how ideas embedded in legal reasoning become institutional authority, and develops a theory of family and health justice grounded in more than two decades of practice across international and multijurisdictional matters.
Academic focus.
My work sits at the intersection of family law, health law and justice, and comparative legal institutions. Practice supplies problems and evidence; interdisciplinary methods supply new ways to examine them.
Family Law
Family governance, children and families, violence, support, and the institutional assumptions that shape legal decision making.
Health Law & Justice
Public health law, disability adjudication, health equity, and interdisciplinary approaches to families' legal and health needs.
Comparative & International Law
Chinese family law, private international law, cross-border custody, foreign-law evidence, and the operation of law across legal systems.
Recent scholarship.
Recent work spans public health law, family law, legal history, and Chinese comparative law.
Teaching capacity.
Primary teaching fields are Family Law, Health Law, and Clinical Teaching, supported by classroom experience in public health law and ethics and writing-intensive history courses.
Comparative expertise grounded in two legal systems.
My Chinese-law work combines legal education in China and the United States, scholarship on Chinese legal institutions, and two decades of cross-border practice.
I hold a Master of Law from Peking University School of Law and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. My comparative work examines statutes, court rules, reported decisions, and the institutional settings in which family law operates.
That work includes scholarship on Chinese family law and legal institutions, the ABA treatise Chinese Family Law and Practice, expert analysis of foreign-law questions, and litigation involving cross-border custody, judgments, and jurisdiction.
Scholarship
Chinese family law, Supreme People's Court decisions, property rights, and comparative approaches to family governance.
Comparative Method
Explaining how rules operate in institutional context rather than treating foreign law as a collection of translated statutes.
Professional Expertise
Foreign-law evidence, recognition of judgments, international custody, and multijurisdictional family-law disputes.
Chinese Family Law and Practice
The most up-to-date reference on Chinese family law statutes, court rules, and reported decisions — written in plain language for practitioners, judges, and researchers around the world. Beyond an overview of the rules, it analyzes real cases to show how those rules are actually applied in Chinese courts.
“An insightful and comprehensive account of family law in China — essential reading for anyone interested in the practice of family law in China.”
Benjamin L. Liebman · Robert L. Lieff Professor of Law, Columbia“Rong Kohtz has artfully pulled together a treatise, geared for U.S. lawyers, that will be a staple of any family lawyer's library.”
Melissa Kucinski · MK Family LawInternational practice, adjudication, and professional distinction.
More than two decades of legal practice across international family law, private international law, immigration, and disability law inform my scholarship and teaching.
Selected reported matters.
A representative set of cross-border cases from prior practice.
Professional distinctions.
Recognition and professional standing in international and family law practice.
International Academy of Family Lawyers ↗
Fellow since 2012.
Super Lawyers
Metropolitan New York · 2024–2026.
Bar Admissions
New York · Michigan · Federal courts in New York and Michigan.
Family law, health justice, and legal institutions.
My scholarship examines how legal institutions translate professional, scientific, economic, and cultural assumptions into rules about families, health, evidence, responsibility, and justice. I use historical, doctrinal, comparative, and empirical approaches across family law and health law.
Research fields.
Family Law
Family governance, children and families, violence, support, adoption, and judicial decision making.
Health Law & Justice
Public health law, disability adjudication, health equity, evidence, and interdisciplinary legal-health institutions.
Comparative & Historical Inquiry
Chinese law, private international law, legal history, and the institutional development of legal categories.
Peer-Reviewed & Journal Articles
Book
Completed Manuscripts Under Revision
Manuscripts in Preparation
Selected Presentations
Fields, classroom experience, and interdisciplinary range.
Teaching fields and classroom experience across law, public health, and writing-intensive courses.
Teaching interests.
My principal fields combine doctrinal, interdisciplinary, and experiential teaching.
Primary
Family Law · Health Law · Clinical Teaching
Additional
Administrative Law · Civil Procedure · Constitutional Law · Conflict of Laws · Immigration Law
Skills & Profession
Legal Writing · Professional Responsibility & Ethics
Michigan State University · College of Human Medicine, Department of Public Health
Guest Instructor. Develop and deliver graduate lectures and course materials on public health ethics and law, health equity frameworks, and interventions addressing structural barriers.
Central Michigan University · History Department
Small Group Instructor / Teaching Assistant. Taught writing-intensive upper-level courses in U.S. and North American Indigenous history across in-person, online, and hybrid formats; designed small-group curricula and lectures; coached analytical writing and research; and assessed papers, exams, and projects.
Academic preparation.
Training across law, public health, history, economics, and Chinese law supports teaching across doctrinal and interdisciplinary settings.
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MPH, expected May 2027.
Columbia University School of Law
J.D. · Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.
Central Michigan University
M.A. in U.S. History.
Peking University School of Law
Master of Law.
Beijing Normal University
B.A. in Economics.