Book Review: Clinicians in Court: A Guide to Subpoenas, Depositions, Testifying, and Everything Else You Need to Know

Published date01 May 2005
Date01 May 2005
DOI10.1177/0734016805275708
AuthorLewis Yablonsky
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-174b9O3BRcokLj/input Book Reviews 129
Clinicians in Court: A Guide to Subpoenas, Depositions, Testifying, and Everything Else You
Need to Know, by Allan E. Barsky and Jonathan W. Gould. New York: Guilford Press, 2002,
256 pp.
DOI: 10.1177/0734016805275708
The authors—Allan Barsky, a lawyer and social worker, and Jonathan Gould, a psychologist—
are eminently qualified to author this book on clinicians in court. They clearly set forth their
goals for the reader:
To gain general professional knowledge; To know how to inform clients about many of the legal
implications of their professional therapeutic relationship; To prepare for or avoid situations in
which you might be called to testify as an expert or nonexpert witness; To prepare for a particular
court action or adjudicative proceeding when you have been called to testify; To devise strategies
to deal with emotional and stressful situations that may arise in the course of the legal proceed-
ing; To develop agency policies on confidentiality record keeping, and privileged information;
and To assist other clinicians who may be called to give evidence in a proceeding.
Throughout the book, they provide theories and cases that significantly aid a reader in acquir-
ing this knowledge.
I have analyzed this book from the foundation of my sociological training and through my
background over the past decade of participating in more than 160 criminal cases as an expert
witness. Like the authors, I am an advocate for greater participation of social scientists in the
judicial process. This book should energize and qualify more social scientists and clinicians
to get involved in the criminal justice system.
Early on, the authors delineate a number of scenarios where clinicians find themselves in
the court process and learn that they are “babes in the woods,” inadequately prepared to play
their role in the process. The overall book effectively presents guidelines for dealing with var-
ied judicial situations.
The book provides useful...

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