Fatal assumption: A critical evaluation of the role of counsel in mental disability cases.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This article questions the assumption that mentally disabled individuals are regularly afforded competent counsel. It finds that such counsel is frequently not available and that our failure to challenge this assumption threatens to make illusory reform efforts by lawyers and mental health professionals alike. The presence of vigorous, independent counsel is critical, especially since legal rights are not self-executing. Such counsel serves an educative function in the entire process, seeks to assure the implementation of collateral legal rights, and avoids the “underidentification” of mental disability cases. These functions have become more important as the political and social climate has changed and as the subject matter has become more complex. A series of reform recommendations is offered to litigators, policy makers, judges, and legislators.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: