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Northeast Litigation and Systemic Advocacy Project

I. Background

For over two decades, the Center for Public Representation has provided litigation support, co-counseling, and assistance on systemic advocacy initiatives to Protection and Advocacy agencies (P&As). This assistance has included legal backup to all P&As funded by NAPAS/ATTAC; and targeted support on special projects such as P&A access, restraint and seclusion, behavioral programs for children, nursing home reform, juvenile justice facilities, voting rights, advance directives, and damage cases.

CPR has co-counseled community integration cases in Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan, and Washington, as well as major system reform litigation in Connecticut, Vermont, and other northeastern states. In addition, CPR staff have participated as expert witnesses or provided extensive support in numerous systemic reform initiatives in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, and the District of Columbia.

The Center's long history of working with P&As on systemic litigation and other advocacy initiatives has demonstrated the constructive role and valuable assistance it can offer to local programs in promoting system reform. Given this success of these activities, the Center has decided to expand its cooperative relationships with P&A agencies in the northeast.

II. Northeast Litigation and Systemic Advocacy Project

The Center for Public Representation has initiated a Litigation and Systemic Advocacy Project to provide co-counseling, assistance, and support to Protection and Advocacy (P&A) agencies in the Northeast. The Project's objectives are to share knowledge and expertise between P&As in the Northeast region and to encourage and support complex system reform initiatives. By offering a flexible array of support activities and arrangements, the Center hopes to assist P&As with complex litigation and other law reform activities which would benefit from collaboration, expertise, and additional resources.

The Center's senior attorneys and Project staff have substantial experience in a wide range of systemic reform issues, including but not limited to:

  • Community integration
  • Community service systems
  • Admissions, discharge, and access to facilities
  • Conditions and services in mental health facilities and programs
  • Conditions and services in developmental disability facilities and programs
  • Children's mental health
  • Nursing homes: specialized services and placements
  • Juvenile justice facilities
  • Prison mental health
  • Design and implementation of complex remedial decrees
  • Damage actions
  • Attorney's fees

The Project can assist P&As on these substantive issues through multiple arrangements. On any of the substantive issues listed above, we can:

  • serve as lead co-counsel in a major lawsuit and share responsibility for all aspects of the litigation;
  • co-counsel a major case, with focused responsibility on discrete aspects of the litigation, such as drafting and implementing the remedy;
  • be "of counsel" and offer advice and assistance in evaluating the case, conceptualizing the claims, developing the litigation plan, designing the discovery phase, planning the trial, the remedies, or briefing an appeal;
  • assume a lead role in the expert witness phase of the litigation, including identifying and retaining the experts, assembling expert teams, developing expert evaluation methodologies and processes, coordinating expert tours, reviewing expert reports, and preparing and presenting experts at depositions or trial;
  • assist in the conceptualization, development, and implementation of non-litigation systemic initiatives, such as a voting rights or advance directive campaign; and
  • research and draft comprehensive papers on policy issues relevant to a specific state, but drawing on national information and experience, such as opposition to outpatient commitment, advance directive statutes, access to correctional settings, or representation of incarcerated juveniles or adults.

III. Project Attorneys

The Project will be staffed by the Center's four senior attorneys: Steven Schwartz, Cathy Costanzo, Bob Fleischner, and Susan Stefan. A brief summary of their experience follows:

Steven Schwartz

Steven J. Schwartz, the Executive Director of the Center for Public Representation, began practicing mental disability law in 1971. He has extensive experience litigating class action cases challenging issues related to the institutional confinement and community integration of persons with disabilities, and has successfully resolved a number of damage cases for individuals with disabilities. Mr. Schwartz has authored a number of law review articles, testified before Congress on P&A authorizing legislation and abuse and neglect issues, and served on the faculty of the Harvard and Western New England Law Schools. He also is one of the Center's senior attorneys who provides technical assistance to P&A attorneys as part of the NAPAS' legal backup program.

Cathy Costanzo

Cathy Costanzo has worked in the mental disability law field since 1977 and has extensive experience in providing representation to institutionalized persons throughout the country. She is the former director of the Massachusetts PAIMI Project, the former chair of NAPAS' Legal Committee, and one of the Center's senior attorneys who provide legal backup to P&A attorneys. Ms. Costanzo is co-counsel in a number of class action cases in New Mexico, Massachusetts, Washington, and Arizona which seek to promote the integration and to expand the rights of persons with psychiatric and developmental disabilities. She has directed the Center's restraint and seclusion project, its death watch project, and its multi-state initiative on challenging the use of aversive punishment on persons with developmental disabilities.

Bob Fleischner

Robert D. Fleischner has been practicing mental disability law since 1973. He is the director of the Massachusetts PAIMI Project. Mr. Fleischner is a national expert on P&A access, advance directives, and guardianship. He was on the faculty of the Western New England Law School and Smith College School of Social Work. Bob is the co-author of Guardianship and Conservatorship in Massachusetts,published by Lexis, and has written several law review articles. He has litigated community integration, civil commitment, guardianship, and fair housing cases. He provides technical assistance to P&A attorneys, has co-counseled cases with the P&A in Michigan, has worked closely on litigation with the Vermont and Maine P&As, and served as an expert witness for the Illinois P&A.

Susan Stefan

Prior to joining the staff of the Center for Public Representation in 2002, Susan Stefan taught Disability Law and Mental Health Law at the University of Miami School of Law. During that time she wrote two books, Unequal Rights: Discrimination against People with Mental Disabilities and the Americans with Disabilities Act (APA Press 2001) and Hollow Promises: Employment Discrimination Against People with Mental Disabilities (APA Press 2002), as well as numerous articles and chapters on mental health law and disability law. She has litigated numerous ADA cases, submitted several amici briefs to the United States Supreme Court and other lower courts. Ms. Stefan is Vice President of the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy and a recipient of many awards for her advocacy and litigation on behalf of people with psychiatric disabilities. From 1986-1990, Ms. Stefan worked at the Mental Health Law Project, now the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, where she litigated several precedent settings cases on P&A access and restraint and seclusion.