Your Legal Challenges in Private Practice
WHO CAN I HELP
“I Never Want to Do Legal/Court Work”
“I Want to Do Forensic Work”
You don’t want to do any work that is going to land you in Court. Simple. You don’t want the headache and just quietly, the idea terrifies you. When you hear of a colleague (who also avoids that kind of work) getting an email from a lawyer asking for notes or a report or even worse, having their notes subpoenaed, you cringe. Then you push that fear to the side, remind yourself of the ‘I don’t write forensic reports’ statement in your client agreement (if you have that) and tell yourself ‘it won’t happen to me’.
BUT NOW…
You’ve just been told by a parent that their lawyer will be contacting you, asking for a report about their child’s treatment for Court. You’ve received a subpoena from the Family Court for your client’s file and found out, that you’ll likely have to testify. You’ve just had a very challenging phone call from a parent who’s found out you’ve been working with their child and they are not happy with you. At some point in the conversation, they said the word ‘complaint’ but now you can’t really recall what they said after that.
There are clinical, ethical and legal matters to consider with any client. Unfortunately, we often find that there are some things we haven’t thought of until we’re faced with a disgruntled client or parent, a lawyer seeking your notes, a request for a treatment report, a subpoena for your notes or a summons to testify.
“I Never Want to Do Legal/Court Work“
The ‘I/We Don’t Do Forensic Work’ Private Practitioner
I do not have all the answers. I have not developed a method that guarantees you won’t have these situations arise. Sorry.
But I have developed an approach to private practice work, especially with you non-forensic folk in mind. This approach fills some gaps in the administrative and clinical policies, processes and practices that are typically seen in Private Practices. Not only will they help you respond to these situations with more clarity and confidence, they can be used as a decision-making tool in most circumstances.
Read more about the 4P’s approach here.
You can also book a supervision session here.
“I Want to Do Forensic Work”
The ’I Want to Do Injuries/Child Protection/Family Court Work’ Private Practitioner
I know there are practitioners out there who are curious about forensic work. I know this because I get emails and Facebook DM’s from them. Some are interested in assessing , or working to build, the capacity of parents who have had their children removed from their care. Others are ‘picking my brains’ about moving into Family Court work as a treating therapist or an assessing practitioner.
In my experience, the people who do this work do it for a few key reasons. The very noble (but genuine reason) is they want to make a difference in the lives of children and parents. Perhaps they’ve always wanted to work with family systems and moving into this space where the system is complex, is a natural progression.
Knowing they can contribute to a Court’s decisions about children’s safety and their relationships with their families, or helping parents and children experience more harmonious relationships following separation/ divorce, tend to play a significant part in the decision to do this work.
The other driver is the appeal of the assessment itself. And not just any old assessment, but one that has a lot of moving parts (aka people, information, issues) to make sense of. In this instance, they’re likely to be a huge fan of complex assessments involving interviewing multiple people, psychometric testing, documents from other sources and psychological research.
Maybe you’ve already begun the work and realised that it’s not uncommon to feel lost; like you can’t see the wood for the trees. I’m not surprised. It’s challenging work and certainly in the early days, you can feel like your opinion is swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other.
It’s a courageous step to do this work. It’s complex, there’s a lot of scrutiny, you need to know your ‘stuff’ and have a bit of gumption … or at least believe you can find some when needed!
If this is you, I’d like to say ‘welcome! And thank you for stepping into this world’. Psychologists have so much to offer children and parents as well as the lawyers and Court itself and because of this, I want more psychologists doing this work.
When you do this work, it’s essential to do so from a solid foundation. I have developed an approach that has provided this foundation; for myself and my colleagues at my practice. A friend and colleague coined this approach, the 4 P’s; Policies, Processes, Practices and Perspectives.
You can read more about the 4P’s training here.
You can also book a supervision session here.