Justice Schaller recently retired as an Associate Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. As a retired Justice and a Judge Trial Referee, he continues to sit on cases at the Connecticut Appellate Court and mediate cases in the courts. He received his B.A. from Yale College in 1960 and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1963. After practicing law for ten years, he was appointed to the Connecticut trial bench in 1974, the Appellate Court in 1992, and the Supreme Court in 2007. He is an instructor of trial and appellate advocacy at the Yale Law School as well as a visiting lecturer in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Wesleyan University. He recently had an appointment as a visiting lecturer at the University of Connecticut School of Public Health. At the Yale Bioethics Center, he is an active member of working groups in neuroscience, public health, and human research ethics. His first book, A Vision of American Law: Judging Law, Literature, and the Stories We Tell, was published in 1997 (paperback edition, 2001) and received the Quinnipiac College School of Law Book Award. His new book, Understanding Bioethics and the Law: The Promises and Perils of the Brave New World of Biotechnology, was published in November, 2007. In May, 2008, Justice Schaller was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Quinnipiac University School of Law.

Justice Schaller, who has taught and lectured widely, regularly teaches courses on bioethics, neuroscience and law, public health law, and literature and law, to state court judges. He has served as faculty in programs of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project, and the National Judicial College. He is currently involved in Bioethics projects addressing legal issues in human research, neuroscience, Alzheimer's disease, and post traumatic stress syndrome. Justice Schaller writes a blog for the Peter Jennings Project at the National Constitution Center (http://peterjenningsproject.blogspot.com/). He serves currently as Chair of the Connecticut Committee on Judicial Ethics. He served for many years as a member of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Branch and as Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules. Justice Schaller is a Charter Life Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, and a member of the American Law Institute.

His courses at Trinity include bioethics, public policy and law, public health policy, ethics, law and justice, and the role of courts and judges in shaping public policy. Using a modified form of the Socratic method, his seminars are based on active class discussion involving reasoned analysis and evaluation of the issues in law, ethics, policy and medicine. Analytical writing is emphasized with close attention to assisting each student to advance in clear reasoning as well as writing and speaking skills.