National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy

Disability Rights Attorneys:

NARPA's 17th Annual Rights Conference
Albany, NY, Marriott
November 19-22, 1998

The National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA) is dedicated to promoting and pursuing those strategies that represent the preferred options of people diagnosed as or perceived as mentally disabled. The "fundamental mission of NARPA is to help empower people who have been labeled mentally disabled so that they may learn to independently exercise their rights." NARPA engages in education, training, and legal intervention on behalf of the rights of its constituency. It monitors developing trends in mental health law and identifies systemic issues and alternative strategies in mental health service delivery on a national scale. NARPA and its members have submitted amicus briefs in many cases in federal and state courts.

This CLE program has been approved in accordance with the requirements of the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board.
Attendees wishing to receive Continuing Legal Education credit may write or e-mail NARPA for details.

Workshops include:

• Recent Developments in Mental Health Law - Susan Stefan, Professor, University of Miami School of Law

• Planning the Ending of a System Reform Class Action Lawsuit: How Will You Know When You've Won? - Clarence Sundram, J. D. and Michael Perlin, J.D., Professor of Law, New York Law School

• Systems Impact Litigation to Close Institutions - Cathy Costanzo, J.D., and Steven Schwartz, J.D., Director, Center for Public Representation (MA)

• The Continuing Legal War Against Community Residences for Persons with Mental Health Disabilities - David Popiel, J.D., Senior Managing Attorney, Community Health Law Project, Community Health Law Project, South Orange, NJ

• Developments in ADA Caselaw: Yeskey, "LC," other recent Supreme Court and Circuit Court Decisions - Susan Stefan, Professor, University of Miami School of Law

• Protecting Children from Institutionalization through Litigation - Ira Burnim, J.D., Director, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

• Annie Hall Goes to Court: The State of Legal Advocacy in the Mental Health System - Michael Perlin, J.D., Professor of Law, New York Law School

• The Politics of Outpatient Commitment: recent initiatives in three states - Laura Zeigler / Robert Appel, J.D., Defender General, VT / Thomas Behrendt, J.D., Legal Director, Connecticut Legal Rights Project / Yvette Sangster, Director, Advocacy Unlimited / Ann Kraus / Mary Auslander, Recipient Affairs, NY Office of Mental Health

• Human Guinea Pigs in Psychiatric Research - Ruth Lowenkron, Director, Disability Law Center at NY Lawyers for Public Interest / Cliff Zucker, J.D., Director, Disability Advocates, Inc., NY; Franklin Marquit, founder, National Artists for Mental Health

• New Changes and New Challenges for Social Security Recipients and their Advocates - Susan Daniels, Deputy Commissioner for Disability and Income Security Programs in Baltimore, MD

• Psychiatric Panel Discussion: A panel composed of innovative psychiatrists Dan Fisher, M.D., Peter Breggin, M.D., and Peter Stastny, M.D. 

  ---

  Keynote speakers:
  
  Michael Perlin, J.D., is a Professor of Law at the New York Law School. He was with the Office of the Public Advocate in New York and brought landmark cases like Rennie v. Klein. Michael serves on the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health. His three-volume treatise, Mental Disability Law: Civil and Criminal, won the 1990 Walter Jeffords Writing Prize and his Jurisprudence of the Insanity Defense won the Manfred Guttmacher Award of the American Psychiatric Association as the best book of the year in law and forensic psychiatry.
  
  Peter Breggin, M.D., is the Director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, a nonprofit research and educational network concerned with the impact of mental health theory and practices upon individual well-being, personal freedom, and family and community values. Dr. Breggin has served as an expert witness in many landmark cases addressing the damage caused by pychiatric treatment, and is a noted author of numerous books about the mental health system, psychiatric treatments, and the damage they cause.
  
  Kevin Heldman is an award winning journalist and former editor of City Limits, and winner of a 1998 National Mental Health Association award for excellence in mental health reporting. He spent 7 1/2 days in Brooklyn's Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center. Kevin will address the attitudes and reactions of the media, lawyers, readers, and hospital staff and how difficult it was to communicate his experiences after he came out.
  
  Curtis Whiteway is an internationally recognized expert on the Holocaust, a U.S. soldier with the liberating forces at Hadamar, Germany, home of the "psychiatric clinic" used by Nazis for euthanasia killing of children and adults with disabilities. Mr. Whiteway has spent many years researching the continuing human experimentation by Nazi doctors who came to America after the war.

  ---

  Other NARPA *98 Presenters

  There are many additional workshops. You will have the opportunity to meet, share, and network with leading disability rights advocates and activists. Among the other presenters:
  
  Peter Ashenden, Deputy Director, Mental Health Empowerment Project, NY * Ronald Bassman, Ph.D., NARPA Vice President and NY State Psychological Ass'n * Teri Berge, IL Guardianship & Advocacy Commission * Marca Bristo., Chairperson of the National Council on Disability * Judi Chamberlin, National Empowerment Center * Mihael Cigler., Legal Advocate, Slovenia * William Coffin, J.D., IL Guardianship and Advocacy Comm * David Cohen, Ph.D., Professor, Univ. of Montreal School of Social Work * Marcia Cutting, Chaplain at Capital District Psychiatric Center, Albany, NY * Emmett Dwyer, J.D., Connecticut Legal Rights Project * George Ebert, Mental Patients Liberation Alliance, NY * Dan Fisher, M.D., National Empowerment Center *  Stacie Hiramoto, Protection & Advocacy, Inc., CA * John Kemp, Chair, Council Civil Rights Committee (NCD) * Mel King, Director of Community Fellows Program at MIT and co-founder of the Rainbow Coalition * Ellen Lawson, J.D., Neighborhood Legal Services * Ronald Leifer, M.D. * Darby Penny, NY State Office of Mental Health * Eric Rosenthal, Mental Disability Rights Int'l * Vera Hassner Sharav, Director of Citizens for Responsible Care in Psychiatry and Research * Laurel Whitehouse Spahn, J.D., IL Guardianship and Advocacy Comm * Peter Stastny, M.D., NY Office of Mental Health, Recipient Affairs, and filmmaker * Clarence Sundram, J.D., formerly of NYS Commission on Quality of Care * Rae Unzicker, NARPA President, and member, National Council on Disability

  ---

  The National Council on Disability (NCD) conducts an open "National Public Hearing" November 20, 1998 at 3:30 p.m , also at the at the Albany Marriott. For further information about this hearing or to register to give testimony at the hearing, contact Stacy Brown at (202) 272-2004; (202) 272-2074 (TTY); sbrown@ncd.gov (e-mail); (202) 272-2022 (fax). The mailing address is National Council on Disability, 1331 F Street, NW, Suite 1050, Washington, DC 20004. The hearing will be chaired by John Kemp, J.D., Chair of the NCD's Civil Rights Committee and by Council Chair Marca Bristo.

  ---

  Workshop Information and Schedule

  Conference '98 Home Page

  See NARPA's ADA Case of the Week

  NARPA Home

  Legal Links

  ---