Mental Disabilities Law Issues
| Publication year | 1977 |
| Pages | 1574 |
| Citation | Vol. 6 No. 9 Pg. 1574 |
1977, September, Pg. 1574. Mental Disabilities Law Issues
The Colorado Bar Association's Office for the Mentally Disabled is planning seminars on mental health and the law for the fall. The first seminar will be conducted in Denver under the auspices of Continuing Legal Education, Inc., on October 1, 1977. The Office will then go on the road with a modified version of this seminar to thirteen Colorado cities: Greeley, Sterling, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Trinidad, Lamar, Alamosa, Durango, Montrose, Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs, Steamboat Springs, and Buena Vista. If you are in the Denver metro area, watch for the C.L.E. brochure in the mail. If you want to attend a seminar in one of the other cities, contact the local bar association there or the Office for the Mentally Disabled, 1321 Delaware Street, Denver, 80204.
Chief Justice Pringle of the Colorado Supreme Court has expressed to us his "deep interest and appreciation for the effort of Continuing Legal Education, Inc., to provide the opportunity for lawyers to become knowledgeable in the field of mental health law." We hope to enlist the support of Colorado judges for attorney training in this field through priority appointment of civil commitment cases to seminar participants.
All persons attending the seminars will receive manuals on the practice of mental disability law. The manual will discuss statutes and case law affecting the mentally disabled, representation of the civilly committed, estate planning considerations, duties of guardians and conservators, governmental benefits, and new laws affecting the education of the handicapped. It will also provide a directory of services and organizations available in the state to aid the mentally disabled and their counsel.
House Bill 1139 amended C.R.S. § 27-10-114 to read: "Any person who, by reason of a judicial decree entered by a court of this state prior to July 1, 1975, is adjudicated mentally ill shall be deemed to have been restored to legal capacity and competency."
Under the old mental health statute, §§ 27-9-101 et seq., in effect prior to July 1, 1975, adjudication (or civil commitment) carried with it an automatic loss of legal capacity. H.B. 1139 restored all legal rights to persons adjudicated under that statute. If a right is again to be...
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