Training Description
The course explores the proposition that all aspects of the legal system (and all roles played by judicial actors) have some potential therapeutic impact on mentally disabled individuals who are litigants or are the subject of litigation, and considers the extent to which the three Vs” that are at the heart of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) -- voice, validation and voluntariness – are honored in different aspects of the legal system. The course focuses on the empirical issues and social assumptions underlying the major mental disability legal doctrines developed in the past four decades in such areas as involuntary civil commitment law, rights of persons institutionalized because of disability, correctional law, the criminal trial process, legal education, and international human rights law.
Trainer Biographies
Michael L. Perlin, JD is Professor of Law Emeritus at New York Law School (NYLS), founding director of NYLS's Online Mental Disability Law Program, and founding director of NYLS's International Mental Disability Law Reform Project in its Justice Action Center. Author of over 30 books and 300 articles on topics including mental illness and the criminal justice system, mental disability law, and sexual violent predator legislation, Professor Perlin has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the American Psychiatric Association and American Academy of Psychiatry and Law’s Manfred Guttmacher Award. Before becoming a professor, Perlin was a Deputy Public Defender in New Jersey as well as the director of the Division of Mental Health Advocacy for the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate.
Heather Ellis Cucolo, JD is an adjunct professor and the current director of New York Law School’s Online Mental Disability Law Program. In addition to representing individuals facing civil commitment under both the New Jersey Mental Hygiene Law and the New Jersey’s Sexually Violent Predators Act, Professor Cucolo has published and lectured internationally on the representation and treatment of sexual offenders. She is recognized as one of the premiere experts in sexual violent predator law and has counseled attorneys, judges and clinicians on law and procedure in civil commitment proceedings and issues involving persons suffering from a mental disability or illness within the criminal justice system.
Learning Objectives
This training is designed to help you:
- To understand the conceptual roots of why and how therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) developed as it did
- To assess substantive areas of mental disability law from the perspective of TJ
- To evaluate the extent to which the legal system follows TJ principles