This course explores the proposition that all aspects of the legal system (and all roles played by judicial actors) have some therapeutic impact on mentally disabled individuals who are litigants or are the subject of litigation. This course focuses on the empirical issues and social assumptions underlying the major mental disability legal doctrines developed the past two decades in such areas as involuntary civil commitment law, treatment of juveniles in the mental disability process, rights of the institutionalized mentally disabled, the trial of mentally disabled criminal defendants, the role of the mentally disabled as third parties' in tort actions, and scope of the psychotherapist-patient privilege. The grade is based on a midterm paper and a take-home final.

This upper-level substantive course focuses on the legal system and its therapeutic impact on mentally disabled individuals who are litigants or the subject of litigation.

Recommended for the following Professional Pathways: Civil Rights/Civil Liberties; Family Law; Government/Public Sector; General Practice - Litigation/Dispute Resolution

3 Credits