Laurie Hallmark

In a Nutshell

Laurie Hallmark is transforming legal representation and advocacy for people with serious mental illness.

About Laurie

Mental Health Lawyer, Laurie Hallmark, is committed to providing representation and advocacy for people with serious mental illness to ensure that they can access critically important support and services to live integrated lives within their communities. By developing highly personalized Psychiatric Advance Directives (PADs)—the foundation for self-determination based advocacy—Laurie is providing a mechanism to address the underlying issues leading to the cycle of incarceration, hospitalization and homelessness recidivism. Laurie is the Special Project Director for Mental Health Programs for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid which serves sixty-eight counties in the state of Texas, from Austin to El Paso and the entire border region. Through a commitment to human and civil rights for people with serious mental illness, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid’s Mental Health Programs seek to invert the system’s power structure, making it accountable to the human beings it exists to serve. Currently, Laurie is an advisor to the state of California on the use of psychiatric advance directives.