Using the Law

Every day mental health professionals are faced with making practice decisions involving cultural, ethical, moral, regional, personal, and legal considerations. Using the Law shows readers how to resolve practice problems efficiently through a structured application of legal principles. Writing for various mental health professionals that face such complex decisions, Andrew B. Israel pulls from the codes of ethics of the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the National Board of Certified Counselors. He presents a unified perspective that stresses the integration of the fundamental legal, ethical, cultural and pragmatic factors influencing practice. Written in a clear and direct style, this thoroughly revised and updated second edition includes a new chapter on reading judicial cases for mental health professionals and expands the treatment of the codes of ethics governing social workers, psychologists, and counselors.

Andrew B. Israel, MSW, JD is Professor at Eastern Washington University School of Social Work, where he served as Director and Chair of the School between 2017 and 2019. Previously, he served as Professor at New Mexico Highlands University School of Social Work from 1996 until 2017, where he also served as Associate Dean between 2005 and 2010 and Interim Dean between 2015 and 2017. He has published textbooks for social workers and other mental health professionals in the areas of law, ethics, decision making and community organizing and has designed, created and taught academic courses in these fields. Professor Israel has received two Fulbright Scholar Specialist appointments to projects in Uganda and Pakistan, where he offered community and university presentations on the use of Anglo/American common law-based decision making in behavioral health and community planning. Prior to his teaching career he practiced law in in New Mexico, mainly in the areas of civil rights, child welfare and
contracts, and is a past Director of the State Bar of New Mexico Section on Public Law. He is presently active as a researcher, lecturer, and consultant in the areas of forensic mental health practice and law-based decision making in the mental health professions.