Law Commons^™

Kicked Out, Kicked Again: The Discharge Review Boards’ Illiberal Application Of Liberal Consideration For Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Jessica Lynn Wherry

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In recent years, the Department of Defense (DoD) has responded to the growing awareness of mental health issues for military servicemembers during and after service. This Article focuses on veterans who have already been discharged from service, and specifically those who have been discharged under other-than-honorable conditions for misconduct that is likely the result of a mental health condition, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury, sexual assault, or sexual harassment. Thousands of former servicemembers have been kicked out of the military for misconduct rather than treated for mental health conditions they experienced due to their military service. When …

Capitalizing On Healthy Lawyers: The Business Case For Law Firms To Promote And Prioritize Lawyer Well-Being, Jarrod F. Reich

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article is the first to make the business case for firms to promote and prioritize lawyer well-being. For more than three decades, quantitative research has demonstrated that lawyers suffer from depression, anxiety, and addiction far in excess of the general population. Since that time, there have been many calls within and outside the profession for changes to be made to promote, prioritize, and improve lawyer well-being, particularly as many aspects of the current law school and law firm models exacerbate mental health and addiction issues, as well as overall law student and lawyer distress. These calls for change, made …

All Roads Lead From Vietnam To Your Home Town: How Veterans Have Become Casualties Of The War On Drugs, Susan Stuart

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ripples Against The Other Shore: The Impact Of Trauma Exposure On The Immigration Process Through Adjudicators, Kate Aschenbrenner

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Past And Future Of Deinstitutionalization Litigation, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

Two conflicting stories have consumed the academic debate regarding the impact of deinstitutionalization litigation. The first, which has risen almost to the level of conventional wisdom, is that deinstitutionalization was a disaster. The second story challenges the suggestion that deinstitutionalization has uniformly been unsuccessful, as well as the causal link critics seek to draw with the growth of the homeless population. This Article, which embraces the second story, assesses the current wave of deinstitutionalization litigation. It contends that things will be different this time. The particular outcomes of the first wave of deinstitutionalization litigation, this Article contends, resulted from the …

Child Welfare Cases Involving Mental Illness: Reflections On The Role And Responsibilities Of The Lawyer-Guardian Ad Litem, Frank E. Vandervort

Articles

Child welfare cases involving mental illness suffered either by a child or his parent can be among the most difficult and perplexing that a child’s lawyerguardian ad litem (L-GAL) will handle. They may present daunting problems of accessing necessary and appropriate services as well as questions about whether and when such mental health problems can be resolved or how best to manage them. They also require the L-GAL to carefully consider crucially important questions—rarely with all the information one would like to have and too often with information that comes late in the case, is fragmented or glaringly incomplete. This …

Building Resilience In Foster Children: The Role Of The Child's Advocate, Frank E. Vandervort, James Henry, Mark A. Sloane

Articles

This Article provides an introduction to, and brief overview of trauma, its impact upon foster children, and steps children's advocates" can take to lessen or ameliorate the impact of trauma upon their clients. This Article begins in Part 11 by defining relevant terms. Part III addresses the prevalence of trauma among children entering the child welfare system. Part IV considers the neurodevelopmental (i.e., the developing brain) impact of trauma on children and will explore how that trauma may manifest emotionally and behaviorally. With this foundation in place, Part V discusses the need for a comprehensive trauma assessment including a thorough …

Risky Business Versus Overt Acts: What Relevance Do Actuarial, Probabilistic Risk Assessments Have For Judicial Decisions On Involuntary Psychiatric Hospitalization, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Lectures and Presentations

Recently, several authors have suggested that only by incorporating findings from actuarial risk assessment instruments (ARAIs) can mental health experts provide evidence-based testimony in mental health commitment hearings. Determining eligibility for involuntary hospitalization seems like an appropriate, natural, obvious application of ARAIs. Similar instruments are used frequently in decision-making about sex offender commitments, where (as with mental health commitment) social policy ostensibly aims to protect the public from harmful acts by persons with mental abnormalities. Also, all evidence suggests that actuarial techniques for judging dangerousness are superior to other methods of assessing the risk of future violence.

Yet in many …

Incompetence To Maintain A Divorce Action: When Breaking Up Is Odd To Do, Douglas Mossman Md, Amanda N. Shoemaker

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The law has well-established provisions for handling divorce actions initiated on behalf of persons already adjudged incompetent or by competent petitioners against incompetent spouses. But how should a court respond if a mentally ill petitioner who is competent to manage most personal affairs seeks to divorce a spouse for bizarre, very odd, or crazy-sounding reasons?

Several recent social developments - better psychiatric treatment, wider acceptance of divorce, population trends, and the advent of “no-fault” and unilateral divorce laws - have made it more likely that mentally ill petitioners will seek divorces. Yet the question of whether to allow a divorce …

Rethinking Guardianship (Again): Substituted Decision Making As A Violation Of The Integration Mandated Of Title Ii Of The Americans With Disabilities Act, Leslie Salzman

Articles

In every state, when an adult has a diminished capacity to make decisions about personal affairs or property management, a court may transfer the individual’s right to make decisions to a guardian. This Article argues that, in most cases, it would be preferable to support decision making rather than supplant it through guardianship, and then seeks to locate a right to receive such support as a less restrictive alternative to the substituted decision making that characterizes guardianship.

Building on the reasoning in Olmstead v. L.C. and subsequent decisions interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act’s integration mandate, this Article argues that …

It’S Doom Alone That Counts: Can International Human Rights Law Be An Effective Source Of Rights In Correctional Conditions Litigation?, Michael L. Perlin, Henry A. Dlugacz

Articles & Chapters

Over the past three decades, the US judiciary has grown increasingly less receptive to claims by convicted felons about the conditions of their confinement while in prison. Although courts have not articulated a return to the 'hands off' policy of the 1950s, it is clear that it has become significantly more difficult for prisoners to prevail in constitutional correctional litigation. The passage and aggressive implementation ofthe Prison Litigation Reform Act has been a powerful disincentive to such litigation in many areas ofprisoners' rights law.

From the perspective of the prisoner, the legal landscape is more hopeful in matters that relate …

Commentary: Mental Health Legislation, Michael L. Perlin

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Maiming The Cubs, James J. White

Articles

In the last twenty years much has been written about the deleterious effect that law school has on the mental well-being of law students.' Many have called for "humanizing" law school. In support of their case, the advocates of humanizing cite numerous anecdotes, much scholarly writing in the psychology literature, and even a few rigorous studies of law students. A principal voice is that of Professor Krieger who has done the most careful and elaborate study, a study of students at two law schools.1 You should understand that Professor Krieger and his cohorts do not merely claim that we make …

Maiming The Cubs, James J. White

Articles

It is easy to believe that students are made anxious and even depressed by law school and that the anxiety and depression stay with many students throughout school. It is harder to believe that these stresses cause permanent and irreversible change and that the ills of lawyers are traced in any meaningful way to the stresses of the three years of law school.

Atkins V. Virginia: A Psychiatric Can Of Worms, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article provides a psychiatric perspective on the problems Atkins raises for courts that handle death penalty cases. In contrast to the overarching aim of the majority's opinion in Atkins - making the administration of capital punishment more equitable - the Supreme Court's latest prescription of psychiatric help may only add a new layer of complexity and confusion to the already capricious process through which the U.S. criminal justice system imposes death sentences. The article briefly review's the Supreme Court's 1989 Penry decision, focusing on the role that evidence of mental retardation played in death penalty cases before Atkins was …

Looking Backward: The Twentieth Century Revolutions In Psychiatry, Law And Public Mental Health, Sheldon Gelman

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Do histories of psychiatry make a difference--or have legal implications--in the present? Does our current situation help explain what historians say about psychiatry's past? Focusing on the past half century--the era of medications-- this paper explores the reciprocal relationship between the present and the past in psychiatry. Part II sketches the medical developments that constitute the subjects of any history of psychiatry. This Part also examines related developments in law. Part III introduces some problems of psychiatric historiography and examines some historians' attempts to deal with them. Part IV analyzes the account of psychiatry's past contained in Edward Shorter's well-regarded …

Unbuckling The Chemical Straitjacket: The Legal Significance Of Recent Advances In The Pharmacological Treatment Of Psychosis, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Antipsychotic medications figure prominently in the rapidly-growing field of mental disability law. Although the properties of antipsychotic medications are medical matters, legal scholars, judges, and practicing attorneys often need to understand what these drugs do. Yet the legal database - the principal or sole information source cited and consulted by legal thinkers - is often a source of confusion or misinformation about the actions of antipsychotic drugs and the scientific basis for prescribing them. The potential for misunderstanding antipsychotic treatment has increased since the arrival of "novel" or "aytpical" antipsychotic drugs, which cause fewer side effects than drugs that were …

How To Cross-Train For Peak Lawyering, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Johnny's In The Basement/Mixing Up His Medicine: Therapeutic Jurisprudence And Clinical Teaching, Keri K. Gould, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

Clinical legal education is both more exhilarating and more stressful than "traditional" legal education. It forces students to confront their pre-existing assumptions about the practice of law and the representation of clients (frequently, indigent and marginalized individuals), and it similarly forces them to integrate new doctrine, theory, and practice in a very different way than "regular" law classes demand.

Therapeutic jurisprudence considers the role of the law as a therapeutic agent, and examines all aspects of the legal system in an effort to determine whether it is operating therapeutically or anti-therapeutically, and suggests that legal decision-makers consider the potential impact …

Attorneys' And Judges' Needs For Continuing Legal Education On Mental Disability Law: Findings From A Survey, Douglas Mossman Md, Marshall B. Kapp Jd, Mph

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Attorneys leave law school with limited knowledge and skills
concerning the issues that arise in mental disability law. Yet
psychiatrists and psychologists are appearing with increasing
frequency as witnesses in the nation's courts, and more attorneys
and judges can therefore expect to have to deal with testimony from
mental health professionals. To our knowledge, this article is the
first published assessment of practicing attorneys' and judges'
needs for continuing legal education (CLE) on mental disability
issues.

The 267 Dayton-area attorneys and 41 southwestern Ohio judges
who responded to our mailed survey said that one-seventh of their
cases raise issues related …

Dangerous Decisions: An Essay On The Mathematics Of Clinical Violence Prediction And Involuntary Hospitalization, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article has two major purposes. First, it provides a mathematical
description of an ideal procedure for making clinical decisions about patients'
future violence, a description that provides a context for evaluating clinicians'
"dangerousness decisions." For purposes of illustration, the Article uses a specific clinical situation-deciding whether to hospitaize involuntarily a patient
based on his risk of harming another. The Article argues that the decision
involves balancing potential risks to third parties (often the patient's family
members) with the "massive deprivation of liberty and other potential
harms to the patient that could result from confinement. The mathematical
description of the …

Stress And Health In 1st-Year Law Students: Women Fare Worse, Daniel N. Mcintosh, Julie Keywell, Alan Reifman, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Articles

The social and psychological consequences of being a female law student may include greater stress and worse health than that experienced by male students. First-year law students at a major state university were surveyed about their physical and psychological health prior to, in the middle of, and at the end of the school year. They were also asked about specific sources of strain (e.g., grades, time pressure) at mid-year. Relative to men, women reported greater strain due to sexism, lack of free time, and lack of time to spend with one’s spouse/partner. Women also displayed more depression and physical symptoms …

Decoding Right To Refuse Treatment Law, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Aids-Related Dementia And Competency To Stand Trial: A Potential Abuse Of The Forensic Mental Health System?, Michael L. Perlin, Joel Dvoskin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Ten Years After: Evolving Mental Health Advocacy And Judicial Trends, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Public Health & The Law—A Symposium Dedicated To Professor William J. Curran, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay serves as the foreword to Public Health & the Law, a symposium dedicated to Professor William J. Curran held in 1987.

During his career, Professor Curran chaired the Harvard School of Public Health Committee on Human Research; he directed the Program in Law and Public Health; and he was co-director of the Harvard Interfaculty Program in Medical Ethics from 1973 to 1980. He was also an advisor to the World Health Organization and spent two sabbatical periods in Europe with WHO organizations. He advised and lectured in countries throughout the world.

At Harvard Law School and at …

An Invitation To The Dance: An Empirical Response To Chief Justice Warren Burger’S ‘Time-Consuming Procedural Minuets’ Theory In Parham V. J.R., Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Involuntary Treatment Of The Mentally Ill, By Michael Peszke, Michael L. Perlin

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Alternatives To Civil Commitment Of The Mentally Ill: Practical Guides And Constitutional Imperatives, David L. Chambers

Articles

In 1930, Ford sold Fords only in black and states offered treatment for mental illness only in public mental hospitals. Today, new views of mental health care and mental health problems have begotten a galaxy of new treatment settings. Few cities can boast community-based programs sufficient to meet their needs, but almost all cities of any size rely increasingly on outpatient programs. The large public mental hospitals still stand, of course. Indeed, every year more people enter public hospitals than entered the year before. Over 400,000 Americans were admitted as inpatients to state and county mental hospitals last year.1 Partly …

Emotional Disturbance As Legal Damage, Herbert F. Goodrich

Articles

MENTAL pain or anxiety the law cannot value, and does not pretend to redress, when the unlawful act complained of causes that alone. Lord Wensleydale's famous dictum in Lynch v. Knight will serve as a starting point for this discussion. His lordship's notion of mental pain is evidently that of a "state of mind" or feeling, hidden in the inner consciousness of the individual; an intangible, evanescent something too elusive for the hardheaded workaday common law to handle. Likewise, in that very interesting problem regarding recovery for damages sustained through fright, it is always assumed, tacitly or expressly, that mere …