The Portable Lawyer for Mental Health Professionals: An A-Z Guide to Protecting Your Clients, Your Practice, and Yourself [Paperback]

Barton E. Bernstein JD LMSW (Author), Thomas L. Hartsell Jr. JD (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 047124869X | ISBN-13: 978-0471248699 | Publication Date: August 15, 1998 | Edition: 1

Everything you need to know to bullet-proof your practice against legal complications.

The Portable Lawyer for Mental Health Professionals is an indispensable survival guide for mental health professionals practicing in these most litigious of times. Written by two attorneys specializing in the legal aspects of the mental health professions, it arms you with the expert knowledge you need to protect yourself and your practice, while serving your clients. Keeping the legal jargon to a bare minimum, Barton Bernstein and Thomas Hartsell, Jr. explain how to handle tricky practice issues such as malpractice allegations, coping with threats of violence, and preserving client confidentiality in a managed care era.

Organized alphabetically for ready reference, this complete A-to-Z guide:

• Provides clear and concise answers to legal questions
• Covers key categories, including record-keeping, confidentiality, forensics, malpractice, managed care appeals, client/therapist relationships, and more
• Features step-by-step guidance, helpful case studies, and "legal lightbulbs" that alert you to crucial do's and don'ts, concepts, and warning signs
• Supplies you with sample forms and contracts to safeguard your practice against legal complications.

You owe it to yourself and your clients to be up to speed on the important legal issues surrounding your profession. With The Portable Lawyer for Mental Health Professionals at your side you always will be.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Everything you need to know to bullet-proof your practice against legal complications.

The Portable Lawyer for Mental Health Professionals is an indispensable survival guide for mental health professionals practicing in these most litigious of times. Written by two attorneys specializing in the legal aspects of the mental health professions, it arms you with the expert knowledge you need to protect yourself and your practice, while serving your clients. Keeping the legal jargon to a bare minimum, Barton Bernstein and Thomas Hartsell, Jr. explain how to handle tricky practice issues such as malpractice allegations, coping with threats of violence, and preserving client confidentiality in a managed care era.

Organized alphabetically for ready reference, this complete A-to-Z guide: Provides clear and concise answers to legal questions Covers key categories, including record-keeping, confidentiality, forensics, malpractice, managed care appeals, client/therapist relationships, and more Features step-by-step guidance, helpful case studies, and "legal lightbulbs" that alert you to crucial do's and don'ts, concepts, and warning signs Supplies you with sample forms and contracts to safeguard your practice against legal complications.

You owe it to yourself and your clients to be up to speed on the important legal issues surrounding your profession. With The Portable Lawyer for Mental Health Professionals at your side you always will be.

About the Author

BARTON E. BERNSTEIN, J.D., LMSW, is an attorney in private practice in Dallas, Texas. He is an adjunct professor at The University of Texas, Arlington, a Licensed Master Social Worker, and the author of numerous articles and book chapters on legal issues affecting mental health practitioners. He conducts workshops and seminars throughout the United States.

THOMAS l. HARTSELL, JR., J.D., maintains a private law practice in Dallas, Texas. He is a board certified specialist in family law. He is a frequent workshop presenter on topics related to ethics, managed care, confidentiality, informed consent, abuse allegations, and other legal aspects of mental health practice, and is an adjunct professor at Northlake College and Texas Woman's University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 274 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (August 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047124869X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471248699
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,667,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > Law > One-L > Annotations & Citations

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars every therapist needs this book, September 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Portable Lawyer for Mental Health Professionals: An A-Z Guide to Protecting Your Clients, Your Practice, and Yourself (Paperback)

The primary author is well known as an instructor of "Family Law" for graduate students of psychology, social work, marriage & family therapy, etc. at several north Texas universities. His courses are always well-received. A previous reviewer commented that a mental health professional would have been helpful. I doubt that would make a difference since so many professionals from various clinical disciplines use these authors as resources. This book is a great adjunct to remind yourself what you need to do as a professional to protect yourself & your clients. While you do not offer legal advice if you are not an attorney, being aware of these issues makes a counselor more likely to recommend that a client see an attorney for advice. Also, re-reading this book on a regular basis reminds us of what we need to continue to do to protect our professional licenses. Often when we are in private practice, just as in other areas of life, we sometimes get lax or forget to attend to all the details necessary to protect us as professionals & our clients. This book is a must for your professional library.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Going into practice? Here's what you must know first., April 13, 1999

By 

Russell Koenig ([e-mail]) (Salt Lake City, Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Portable Lawyer for Mental Health Professionals: An A-Z Guide to Protecting Your Clients, Your Practice, and Yourself (Paperback)

I stumbled across this book while preparing a project as part of my undergrad Psychology studies at the University of Utah. What a lucky find this is! *** Many statements exist in the world of mental health practice regarding what standards of professionalism, ethicality, conduct, and confidentiality a psychologist should adhere to. Many of them, I've discovered so far, are abstract: they state the standard but give little, if any, illustration on how a practicing therapist applies all that to his/her job and life. This book is the first I've uncovered that gives the clear and understandable picture that I need as an aspiring psychologist. *** I think I understand well enough the general principle that motivated the authors to write this book: all too often, each of us has gotten burned in the past because of some rule, some technicality, some law that would have worked in our favor had we acted with a knowledge of it. For example, I know someone who wouldn't have paid a single cent of his medical bills caused by an on-the-job accident had he simply reported his injury within 48 hours instead of waiting a week. Things like that. I'm always making sure I do things like keep receipts, review credit card statements, and watch what creeps into my college transcripts, because it's the little things that can screw our lives up so badly. All the more so for therapists, the authors believe, because of their heavy responsibility to safeguard their clients' welfare, and because unfortunately their training doesn't seem to prepare them for some types of potential legal trouble. *** As part of that approach, this book takes an interesting departure from other literature on mental health ethics. Despite what the title says, the contents seem to focus not so much on protecting the client--although that principle is by no means diminished--as it does on protecting the therapist. That may seem selfish, but hey, you've got to learn this stuff somehow! *** The authors do an excellent job of explaining a diversity of issues in understandable ways. They use well-constructed scenarios that make you ask yourself, "what would I do if faced with this dilemma?" Then they systematically explain what the options are, and what to avoid along the way. They show you several sample documents along the way that demonstrate how to remove any legal doubts from your practice. The objective is to prevent things from going wrong, but they also discuss when things get ugly, such as a client who commits suicide and the relatives sue you, the therapist, for malpractice. Or when to breach confidentiality and activate your "duty to warn" if a client threatens violence against someone else--or yourself. *** I noted that the authors were both lawyers, and that only one was licensed as a master social worker. I wish, despite their impressive knowledge and experience, that a psychologist might have collaborated with them on this work. I wonder what sort of change in perspective it would have brought to have someone involved in this writing who was solely a practioner of mental health, and not of law. *** Nevertheless, if you have a vested interest in psychology, I think this is essential reading. If you are a practicing psychologist, and you do not completely know these practical issues, you may be an unwitting candidate for some serious trouble. If you are, like me, someone who hopes one day to become a psychologist, this is an excellent way to introduce and orient yourself to some very pertinent information--and get a firm and realistic picture of what it's really going to be like for you. Best you pay attention.