The ONLINE MENTAL DISABILITY LAW PROGRAM AT NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL is proud to announce the course offerings for the Spring 2007 semester: * International Human Rights and Mental Disability Law * Lawyering Skills in the Representation of Persons with Mental Disabilities, and * Mental Health Issues in Jails and Prisons These three courses cover a wide array of topics, and the Online Mental Disability Law Program is the only place that you will discover such a selection of cutting-edge and significant courses in this rapidly growing field of law. Below you will find a detailed description of each course and when the course meets. The distance-learning format for all courses will include weekly DVD lectures, reading assignments, synchronous chat sessions, and a discussion forum, as well as two day-long live seminars during the course of the semester. The mid-term and final exams will be "take-home" writing assignments. If you are not a student at a law school, medical school or in an undergraduate or graduate program, you will receive a pass/fail grade and a certificate upon successful completion. If you are a student at a law school (other than NYLS) , medical school or in an undergraduate or graduate program, you may be eligible to receive credit towards your degree. Please contact Liane J. Bass, Esq., Senior Administrator, at < >. The tuition for each course is $1,800.00 which includes online access to the course site and the 14 DVD set of lectures per course. The Spring semester at New York Law School begins January 8, 2007. If you would like to register for one or more courses, please complete the attached registration form. Please submit the form to Liane J. Bass, Esq., Senior Administrator, by email at < > or by fax at +1 212-343-2039 or by mail to the address at the top of the registration form. If you are student seeking course credit towards a degree, please contact Liane Bass before completing a registration form. The Registration Deadline is Friday, December 15, 2006. For further information about the ONLINE MENTAL DISABILITY LAW PROGRAM AT NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL, please visit www.nyls.edu/mdl. Questions about registration - contact liane bass, Esq. at < >. Questions about course selection, course content or course sequencing - contact professor Michael perlin at < > or Liane Bass, Esq. at < >. COURSE DESCRIPTIONS * International Human Rights and Mental Disability Law * Professor Michael Perlin and Professor Eva Szeli Tuesday, 8:45 pm to 10:00 pm Live seminars: Saturday, January 27, 2007 and Saturday, April 21, 2007 International Human Rights and Mental Disability Law analyzes mental disability rights issues through the lens of international human rights law. As a foundation, student participants will be provided with overviews of both U.S. constitutional mental disability law and international human rights law. The bulk of the course will focus on the application of core international human rights principles and mandates to the protection of the rights of persons with mental disabilities, particularly those who live in institutional settings. Regional human rights instruments and tribunals will be discussed in detail, comparing and contrasting mental disability rights approaches in various regions throughout the world. The course will include a discussion of both current investigations and historical documentation of abuses against persons with mental disabilities. Considerable attention will be paid to social, psychological, and political factors which fuel such human rights abuses, as well as the advocacy which seeks to overcome these factors and end these abuses. Universal factors in mental disability rights will be highlighted throughout the course, with an emphasis on the sanist prejudices and pretextual processes faced by persons with mental disabilities across the globe. In addition to law students with an interest in mental disability law, this course is likely to be both philosophically interesting and practically useful to mental disability law scholars, legal counsel, members of the judiciary, lay advocates, clinicians, administrators, and -- most importantly -- to persons with mental disabilities and the significant people in their lives. * Lawyering Skills in the Representation of Persons with Mental Disabilities * Professor Rick Friedman Wednesday, 8:45 pm to 10:00 pm Live seminars: Saturday, February 3, 2007 and Saturday, April 28, 2007 The Lawyering Skills course is designed to teach students the special lawyering skills that are essential in cases involving the representation of persons with mental disabilities. It covers civil commitment standards; outpatient commitment; issues of proof; dealing with expert witnesses; rights to community services; forensic issues; patient advocacy issues; and dealing with stigma/public awareness. Over thirty years ago, federal judge David Bazelon characterized assigned counsel in mental disability law cases "walking violations of the Sixth Amendment." Five years ago, the Montana Supreme Court found the inadequacy of counsel in civil commitment cases to be so profound that it demanded a more rigorous standard for assessing counsel effectiveness in such cases than that required by the US Supreme Court in criminal cases. Lawyering Skills was created to provide lawyers (those who represent persons with mental disabilities and those who represent governmental units and/or hospitals), forensic mental health professionals who testify in mental disability law cases, advocates and activists with an in-depth and advanced "window" into the full range of issues that arise in the mental disability law process. This course differs from the other courses in the online program in that it includes two simulated trials - one of a civil commitment hearing, and one of an incompetency-to-stand-trial determination. It also includes a simulated interview of a patient subject to civil commitment. Witnesses in these trials include forensic psychiatrists (who have studied in the NYLS mental disability law program). The addition of these simulated trials to the DVD collection for this course will give students a much fuller understanding as to how the skills covered in this course "play out" in "real life." * Mental Health Issues in Jails and Prisons * Professor Henry Dlugacz Live seminars: Sunday, January 28, 2007 and Sunday, April 21, 2007 Why is this course important? Over two million people are incarcerated on any given day in the United States. A recent report by the United States Department of Justice indicates that more than half of all prison and jail inmates had a "mental health problem" as of mid-year 2005. Our nation's jails and prisons, not our psychiatric hospitals, are now the institutions which house the largest groups of mentally disabled people. The vexing administrative, public health, law enforcement, social, political, economic, psychological, and constitutional issues which are raised by this situation are the subject of numerous lawsuits. Importantly, they are attracting increased attention from policy-makers, advocates, and bipartisan groups of legislators in this county as well as abroad. Starting with first point of contact with law enforcement, through the criminal trial process, pre and post-trial detention, and ultimate reentry into society, this course exams the relevant legal standards-statutory, constitutional, and treaty-based which govern this complex area of law. Topics covered include: diversion, specialty courts, constitutional standards, insanity defense, competency to stand trial and death penalty issues, disciplinary proceedings and issues related to "SuperMax" prisons, reentry, international and professional standards, liability issues, and the attitudes we have concerning prisoners with mental disabilities that shape our approach to all of these issues. This course should be of interest to advocates, forensic psychologists and other mental health professionals, criminologists, criminal justice policymakers, clinicians working in corrections, agency attorneys, administrators in corrections, judges overseeing criminal cases involving persons with mental disabilities or related institutional reform litigation. ======== Global Human Rights Education listserv ======= Send mail intended for the list to < >. Archives of the list can be found at: http://www.hrea.org/lists/hr-education/ **You are welcome to reprint, copy, archive, quote or re-post this item, but please retain the original and listserv source.
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