Advanced Introduction to Mental Health Law: (Elgar Advanced Introductions series)

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world’s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Written by esteemed legal scholar Michael L. Perlin, this indispensable Advanced Introduction examines the long-standing but ever-dynamic relationship between law and mental health. The author discusses and contextualises how the law, primarily in the United States but also in other countries, treats mental health, intellectual disabilities, and mental incapacity, giving examples of how issues such as the rights of patients, the death penalty and the insanity defense permeate constitutional, civil, and criminal matters, and indeed the general practice of law. Key features include: unpacks key US Supreme Court decisions to focus on the issues that have been most significant in the development of the field explains the distortion of this area of law by biased and stereotypical social attitudes including sanism examines lesser-known cases that illuminate judicial attitudes, helping readers to better understand likely future developments in mental health law. Offering an insightful introduction to this field, the Advanced Introduction to Mental Health Law is an invaluable resource for students and newly qualified lawyers, and will appeal not only to those looking to understand the law in the United States, but how this contributes to the development of the field as a whole.

Table of Contents:
Contents: 1. Introduction to the Advanced Introduction to Mental Health Law 2. Some jurisprudential filters 3. Counsel and judges 4. Civil commitment law 5. Institutional rights 6. Rights of persons with mental disabilities in community settings 7. Between civil and criminal mental disability law 8. Criminal incompetencies 9. The insanity defense 10. Access to experts, sentencing, and correctional treatment issues 11. The death penalty Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Michael L. Perlin, Professor Emeritus of Law, New York Law School, USA

Review :
’Michael Perlin is widely acknowledged as one of the leading voices in mental disability law, with an unequalled breadth of understanding. That breadth is on full display in his latest book, which spans civil and criminal law, as well as international law. Perlin’s unique lens on the theory and practice of mental health law is on full display in this work, which powerfully summarizes a lifetime of work in the field of mental health law.’ ’Michael Perlin has authored a(nother) remarkable text. This Advanced Introduction to Mental Health Law presents a fresh, engaging overview of mental disability law, with detailed coverage of a range of issues relevant to mental disability as it pertains to civil and criminal law, and set within the context of relevant case law and insightful commentary. This book is an excellent resource for anyone involved at the interface of mental health and legal systems, from graduate students learning about law and mental health to advanced practitioners responsible for maintaining competent practice.’ ’Nobody knows more about mental health law than Michael Perlin, and Advanced Introduction to Mental Health Law is his magnum opus. His other books may be more comprehensive, but this book covers complicated topics with astonishing clarity. This book is a must read for attorneys, forensic psychologists and psychiatrists, judges, and people with lived experience who routinely deal with mental disabilities in legal contexts.’ ’This book is a professor’s dream, packaging the vast subject of mental health law into the most-user-friendly companion. Called an “Advanced Introduction” it is both, as Professor Perlin’s masterly synthesis is a reference work for both teachers and students of mental health law. The inclusion of history, case law, and therapeutic jurisprudence puts his brilliance on display. The text is easily accessible and the references provide a roadmap to the universe of the intersection of law and mental health.’ ’Michael L. Perlin’s excellent book, Advanced Introduction to Mental Health Law, is aptly named - not because it is difficult, but because it is usefully thorough. In its chapter on the right to counsel in civil commitment proceedings, for example, Perlin details the various ways state statutes provide for counsel and whether they are silent or detailed on the specific roles expected of lawyers.Perlin also looks at mental health law through various “filters” that have been detrimental to the administration of the law - such as “sanism” and pretextual decision-making. In response, Perlin’s work is driven by a positive filter: the “potentially redemptive significance of the school of thought known as therapeutic jurisprudence.” This is a wonderful achievement.’ ’Professor Michael L. Perlin’s modestly titled Advanced Introduction to Mental Health Law provides the royal road for mental health clinicians and attorneys in all stages of experience, from neophyte to expert to travel ethically and effectively through the otherwise foreboding dark woods of civil and mental health disability law. Whether a student or an experienced practitioner, each chapter enlightens and encourages a deeper yet ever more practical understanding. Perlin’s readable, reasonable style is lyrical and lawyerly, all the more apt for a field where one feels with apologies to Bob Dylan, “there is something happening here” alongside “Oh my G-d, am I all alone”.Inspired by Professor Perlin’s vital contributions to mental health law over the decades to such questions as what is the line between “sanity” and “sanism” the book is both timeless and timely and of both very special and very general interest.’