This paper describes an educational experience for psychiatric residents that can serve both as an introduction to the interface of law and psychiatry and to issues related to assuming a professional role. This experience centers on participation with law students in a moot court or similar exercise. For the past three years, psychiatric residents and law students have been participating in such exercises as part of the Community Clinical Law Project, a clinical law seminar at Columbia University Law School, taught in conjunction with psychiatric services affiliated with the university's medical school.••

This kind of experience is rare in psychiatric training. In a recent survey of forensic psychiatric education, Sadoff does not report any programs utilizing participation by residents in a moot court and reports little or no contact between law students and medical students or residents in interdisciplinary educational efforts. I