Forced Treatment and Persons with Mental Disabilities

On Monday, September 10, 2007, the Justice Action Center held the first event in this year's Justice Speaks Lunch Series. Professor Michael Perlin moderated as guests Dennis Feld and Deborah Dorfman discussed the forced treatment of individuals with mental disabilities. Mr. Feld focused on litigation involving electroshock therapy. Ms. Dorfman discussed recently developed--and controversial--set of medical procedures collectively referred to as "Ashley's Treatment."

Lunch was provided to all attendees.

Click here for photos of the event.

Dennis Feld
Dennis Feld conceived and cofounded, together with Tom Behrendt, past NARPA president, the Special Litigation and Appeals Unit of Mental Hygiene Legal Service (MHLS). Mr. Feld has authored two New York State Office of Court Administration publications: Representing the Mentally Disabled Criminal Defendant; Post-Admission Proceedings and Depositions, and Civil Litigation and Motion Practice in Mental Health Advocacy. He is currently a Deputy Chief Attorney with MHLS, although his position against forced treatment is not necessarily endorsed by that agency. Although he is too modest to put this into his own bio, his clients know that they can literally rely on him to go the extra mile for them. (He has been known to hand deliver documents if deadlines could not be met in more conventional ways.) His friends and family know him as a devoted husband and the loving father of two young daughters.

Deborah Dorfman
Deborah Dorfman is currently working as Senior Counsel at New York City's Office of Corporation Counsel. Previously she has worked as an Expert Legal Consultant at the Mental Disability Advocacy Center in Budapest, Hungary, where she reported on mental health issues within the country. She received her Juris Doctor from New York Law School, and while here, won the Soubbotch Award for Excellence in Poverty Law & Civil Rights. She has been counsel on cases such as Marr, et al. v Easter State Hospital, et al. as lead counsel in a class action on behalf of patients with developmental disabilities who were deprived proper care and treatment. Ms. Dorfman has also co-authored articles on mental disability with our own professor, Michael Perlin.

Michael Perlin
Michael Perlin, formerly director of the NJ Division of Mental Health Advocacy, now teaches five mental disability law courses at NYLS, and has created the first and only on-line distance learning mental disability law course (being offered both domestically and internationally). He has written over a dozen books and 150 articles on all aspects of mental disability law, and is now focusing primarily on the connections between mental disability law and international human rights law. He is the director of the Law School's Mental Disability Law Program, as well as the Justice Action Center's International Mental Disability Law Reform Project.