Forensic Assessments for Capacity & Undue Influence: A Practitioner’s Manual the Mental Health Expert/ Revised and Updated Edition—2026

The demand for clinicians who can tell disease from incapacity, and persuasion from undue influence, has never been greater. As the population ages, courts increasingly need mental-health experts who can produce functional, data-anchored opinions-and defend them in a report, in deposition, and on the witness stand.Forensic Assessments for Capacity and Undue Influence is a practitioner's manual for the licensed clinician stepping into this work. It narrows the broad field of forensic practice to two high-stakes civil evaluations and teaches the essential skills to conduct them, to write a defensible report, and to communicate that report effectively to the court.Written for readers who already hold an advanced degree and an independent license, the book moves from foundations to courtroom. It covers what qualifies a clinician as an expert under Daubert and the amended Federal Rule of Evidence 702; the social and neurocognitive foundations of capacity, including Alzheimer's, vascular, and Lewy body disease; how to operationalize capacity and undue influence; the appropriate use of psychometric testing and structured interviews; prospective versus retrospective and posthumous evaluation; evaluator bias and the pull of the retaining side; and the report writing, testimony, and cross-examination that make or break an opinion. Teaching case studies-including one in which the finding is adverse-model how to reason to a conclusion the data actually support.This revised and updated 2026 edition brings the science and the law current-DSM-5-TR, the December 2023 amendment to Rule 702, and recent advances in Alzheimer's diagnosis and treatment-and adds new material on cross-examination, retrospective evaluation, and cultural and linguistic factors in testing. Appendices supply sample case-study reports, an engagement letter, a review of psychometric assessments, and a structured capacity interview.Rigorous, practical, and court-focused, this manual prepares the mental-health professional for a credible first day as a forensic expert.