Civil Litigation and Personal Injury Assessment HW

A forensic assessment may serve a number of purposes in both criminal and civil contexts. In the context of civil litigation, a forensic mental health professional may be called to provide an assessment in a personal injury case. For example, the professional may be asked to identify whether a traumatic disability or syndrome exists and, if so, to determine the severity and impact on an individual’s functional abilities. Personal injury litigation expands over several areas.

Using resources from the professional literature, research two types of reports written for civil litigation purposes. The literature may include the Argosy University online library resources, relevant textbooks, peer-reviewed journal articles, and scholarly websites created by professional organizations, agencies, or institutions.

Based on your research, create a 3- to 4-page paper in a Microsoft Word document responding to the following:

Discuss at least two ways in which a forensic assessment may be required in each type of civil forensic case.

Identify the specific psycholegal issues to be addressed in each type of evaluation.

Discuss the role of the independent medical examiner or independent forensic psychologist.

Discuss several key elements that the forensic mental health professional would want to include in the report.

Identify the legal entity or stakeholder (e.g., defense attorney) who might request each type of assessment report and explain the potential reasons for the requests. In other words, what might the forensic professional add to an understanding of the case beyond what is generally known by laypeople?

Describe the assessments that are utilized to write the reports.

Identify the limitations of the reports.

Assignment 3 Grading Criteria

Maximum Points
Discussed at least two ways in which a forensic assessment may be required in each type of civil forensic case.

16
Assessed the role of the independent medical examiner or independent forensic psychologist.

8
Discussed the role of the forensic mental health professional.

8
Identified who would request each type of report and explained the potential reasons for the requests.

8
Described the circumstances for such reports to be written.

8
Described which assessments are utilized to write the reports.

12
Explained what information can be obtained from the report.

12
Identified the limitations of the report for the two reports you selected.

12
Wrote in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrated ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources; displayed accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.