Courtney Bergan ’23 has been named a 2023 Equal Justice Works Fellow. Embedded at Disability Rights Maryland (DRM), Bergan will spend two years working to combat the unjust segregation of people with psychiatric disabilities by using legal and legislative advocacy and outreach to expand access to community mental health support and reduce hospitalizations.
Bergan’s project is partly driven by their own experiences with unnecessary institutionalization due to an inability to access community support. “I was fortunate to have lawyers to help me gain access to the support and resources I needed to thrive,” said Bergan. “I hope to use my Equal Justice Works Fellowship to pay that advocacy forward to others in my community.”
Bergan will use trauma-informed lawyering to help individual clients challenge service denials barring access to community mental health support and will create resources to provide impacted individuals with information on their rights to community inclusion. In addition, Bergan will engage in systemic advocacy by using legislative advocacy to expand community-based alternatives to hospitalization and evaluating whether systemic litigation may be needed to guarantee the right to community integration.
Bergan, who graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif with a certificate in Health Law is also driven by their professional background as a medical researcher in which they witnessed systemic discrimination against people with psychiatric disabilities. The law, said Bergan, allows them to “do something to change the system.”
The New Hampshire native made an impression on Disability Rights Maryland as a summer intern last year and then stayed on through the school year. After writing a 35-page memo on the constitutional issues relating to a DRM client’s forced medication case, the nonprofit invited Bergan to apply for a highly competitive “design-your-own" Equal Justice Works Fellowship. “Wait, I get to design my own job?” laughed Bergan.
Yes, please.
They were aided in the application process by Luciene Parsley ’02, litigation director at Disability Rights Maryland, whom Bergan calls “amazing.” Parsley and Bergan originally connected when Bergan went to DRM as a client seeking assistance in gaining access to resources. Later, Parsley became Bergan’s internship supervisor at DRM.
"Courtney brings a great mix of deep knowledge of the laws and policies around disability rights (and particularly mental disability law) and the advocacy and passion that comes with lived experience and a commitment to disability justice,” said Parsley. “As a fellow alum, I know how important the support and assistance of mentors, professors, and law school staff were to me as I began my legal career. We are glad Courtney has chosen to begin theirs at DRM!”
During law school, Bergan was active in efforts to raise awareness and promote equity for people with disabilities. They founded a student association to advocate for law students with disabilities and appeared as a panelist in “Uneasy Alignments: The Mental Health Turn in the American Legal System.” The symposium, co-hosted by Maryland Carey Law’s Journal of Health Care Law & Policy, explored the use of legal coercion to force compliance with mental health interventions across various areas including child welfare, families, and criminal legal systems.
In April, they published a commentary in Maryland Matters critiquing House Bill 823, which, Bergan wrote, “could devastate the rights of many people with psychiatric disabilities by enabling counties to enact assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs, a euphemism for court ordered mental health treatment.”
Bergan’s Equal Justice Works Fellowship will begin in fall 2023 after the bar exam. Founded in 1986, Equal Justice Works is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that brings together an extensive network of law students, lawyers, legal services organizations, and supporters to promote a lifelong commitment to public service and equal justice.