Dr. Bruce Leckart - Forensic Psychologist

     I have been doing medical-legal evaluations on a psychological basis for over 30 years. In addition to evaluating patients with personal injury or workers’ compensation claims, I am firmly dedicated to discrediting poorly-written psych reports and helping attorneys see better outcomes with their psych cases. For over 10 years I have been writing Apricots™. Apricots™ are written reports that describe the major flaws that exist in psych reports using easy-to-understand terminology that provides information that an attorney needs to successfully cross-examine a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a neuropsychologist and/or draft a brief for the court. It also provides an extensive list of questions that will expose the flaws in a psych doctor’s report during cross-examination.       Through my work over the years, I have become aware that attorneys who cross-examine psych doctors typically prepare for this task by designing questions directed at the doct...

     As a psychologist who helps attorneys effectively cross-examine psychiatrists and psychologists I frequently have the opportunity to read depositions and trial records.       In those cross-examinations, psychiatrists are often asked about the results of psychological testing that is sometimes completely left out of their examinations and reports.       The most bizarre testimonies are in response to questions about their failure to administer a keystone psychological test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). More often than you might imagine, a psychiatrist will openly testify something like, “I didn’t give an MMPI because I’m not an expert in psychological testing.”       This kind of answer is bizarre because a forensic psychiatrist’s job is to evaluate the patient and arrive at a conclusion about whether or not they have a psychological disorder, and if so, what is it’s likely cause, ...

     The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly demanded pause in many aspects of life. However, something that will never cease are mental problems experienced by humans. In fact, early studies show that the chaos of the current pandemic has elevated mental and emotional problems, some of which are experienced by essential workers because of the stress of their essential job. Attorneys and insurance professionals who handle personal injury and/or workers’ compensation claims are likely working remotely and have begun to see claims of mental or emotional injury due to events associated with COVID-19. Attorneys and adjusters who handle psych cases stemming from events of COVID-19, or any psych case antedating the COVID-19 pandemic, will be in a good position if they are able to understand the report submitted by a psychologist, psychiatrist, or neuropsychologist.       I’ve been doing medical-legal evaluations on a psychological basis for over 30 years. In add...

     Don’t accept a substantially flawed psych report. Get the report dismissed!       Unfortunately, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists and psychologists often write reports for the courts that are substantially flawed. When you get one of those reports, the first hurdle is to figure out if the doctor did a good job in writing their report or if the report contains fatal errors that could warrant the dismissal of that report by the Trier of Fact. This newsletter will discuss five steps to determine if the report is substantially flawed and should be thrown out.       Before proceeding to a discussion of the five steps referred to above, it is imperative that the attorney decide to attack the diagnosis, which is invariably the most vulnerable part of the doctor’s report. It is almost never a good idea to attack the doctor’s conclusions about causation, the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) score, apportionment, temporary or perm...

G.M. Filisko's article published in July, 2017 ABA Journal states that psychiatrists and psychologists " are among the toughest witnesses to challenge because their testimony can have elements of hearsay as well as subjectivity ."  Filisko further states, "Bruce Leckart, a Los Angeles-based forensic psychologist and professor emeritus of psychology at San Diego State University, has developed a set of rules for cross-examining mental health professionals. One rule is to never ask them about the patient directly but instead confine questions to their report. Another is to always determine whether they have taken a complete history of the patient’s symptoms and complaints to support the diagnosis."     Read the full article here: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/cross_examine_psychiatrists_psychologists

     Many of you who have referred cases to me over the last three plus decades know that for the last 10 years I have been writing ApricotsTM. An ApricotTM is a work-product privileged report written for an insurance adjuster and/or an attorney who believes they have a substantially flawed psychological or psychiatric report that can harm their client’s case. My job is to find and describe those flaws in nontechnical language and to discuss the specific techniques and strategy for cross-examining the doctor with simple questions designed to get those flaws on the record during a deposition or trial despite the doctor’s potential evasiveness. That same ApricotTM can be used to write a brief for the trial court or an appeal.       One fact that has always fascinated me is that the vast majority of reports coming from forensic psychiatrists and psychologists are substantially flawed. Last month I wrote a newsletter addressing the question, “Why Are There...

The doctor needs to be fully prepared to defend their conclusions that there is “ some difficulty ”“ moderate difficulty ,” “ serious impairment ” and “ major impairment ” with objective data from the examination that supports a believable conclusion. Statements about an applicant’s level of permanent psychiatric disability rest upon the doctor’s conclusions about their Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). According to the Schedule for Rating Permanent Disabilities each GAF score bears a corresponding Whole Person Impairment (WPI) score. GAF scores of 70 or above have a WPI score of 0. GAF scores of 40 or less have WPI scores greater than 50. GAF scores that are above 70 or below 40 are not typically problematic in workers’ compensation cases unless the doctor has made a gross error. The GAF scale is defined on page 34 of the DSM-IV-TR. Here are the DSM-IV-TR definitions for the most relevant scores for worker’s compensation purposes. 70-“Some mild symptoms (e.g., depressed mood ...