About the Authors

• Author: Richard D. Schneider; Caitlin Pakosh; Lora Patton
• Pages: 711-712

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About the Authors

The Honourable Mr. Justice Richard D. Schneider, BSc, MA, PhD, LLB, LLM, CPsych, is a Justice

of the Ontario Court of Justice, Deputy Judge of the Territorial Court of Yukon, Chair of the Ontario

Review Board, and Alternate Chair of the Nunavut Review Board. He was previously a criminal

defence lawyer and certied clinical psychologist. He was counsel to the Ontario Review Board

from  to  and was certied by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a specialist in crim-

inal litigation. Justice Schneider is also an Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of

Medicine and Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto; a “Specially Appointed Researcher” at

the China University of Political Science and Law Criminal Psychology Research Centre. He was

named Honorary President of the Canadian Psychological Association in .

Justice Schneider’s private practice was generally limited to the representation of mentally

disordered accused, and a great deal of his time has been spent presiding at the Mental Health

Court in Toronto. His major research interests are competency and criminal responsibility, and he

has published extensively in the area of mental disorder and the law. Recent books include Mental

Health Courts: Decriminalizing the Mentally Ill (, with H. Bloom & M. Heerema); Annotated

Ontario Mental Health Statutes, th ed (); The Lunatic and the Lords (); Law and Mental

Disorder: A Comprehensive and Practical Approach (, with H. Bloom); Mental Disorder and the

Law: A Primer for Legal and Mental Health Professionals, d ed (, with H. Bloom); Fitness to

Stand Trial: Fairness First and Foremost (, with H. Bloom); and The Death of a Buttery: Mental

Health Court Diaries () [all published by Irwin Law/irwinlaw.com].

Caitlin Pakosh is an Assistant Crown Attorney in Newmarket and an Assistant Professor at the

University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) Forensic Science Program with experience researching

and writing about the intersection between the forensic sciences and criminal law, most notably

in her award-winning book, The Lawyer’s Guide to the Forensic Sciences (Irwin Law, ). Among

her other duties as an Assistant Crown Attorney in Newmarket, Caitlin assists in the organization

of the Domestic Violence Community Treatment Court, which addresses intimate partner violence

cases involving accused persons with underlying challenges, including addiction, mental health

issues, and elder violence among intimate partners.

In her capacity at UTM, Caitlin teaches three courses that explore the forensic sciences and

Canadian criminal law: a rst-year introductory course, an advanced third-year course, and an

upper-year research course. Prior to joining the Ministry of the Attorney General, Caitlin spent six

years as a criminal defence lawyer, opening an appellate practice after working for several years

at Innocence Canada (formerly AIDWYC, the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted)

as its Case Management Counsel, then as its Senior Sta Lawyer. Caitlin was called to the Bar

in Ontario in June  after receiving her law degree from the University of Calgary in . She

graduated from UTM’s Forensic Science program in , specializing in forensic anthropology

with a minor in biology. 