EDITOR’S NOTE: The University of Oregon School of Law’s annual commencement is at 1 p.m. Sunday, May 13, in the Silva Concert Hall at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, One Eugene Centre. The ceremony, open to the public, will honor 150 graduates. Edward McAniff, a corporate lawyer and a visiting professor at the law school, will deliver the keynote address. For more information on these tips, call the numbers listed, or the UO Office of Communications, (541) 346-3134.

Kathleen Mercer, who plans to advocate for the mentally ill in the criminal justice system, is determined to change the way criminal courts deal with mentally ill defendants. Mercer, who did legal and mental health research for the Kip Kinkle defense team, is alarmed at the explosion in numbers of mentally ill inmates–an estimated quarter million in 1990–in America’s jails and prisons. "The failure of the judicial system, and of society as a whole, to deal with the realities of mental illness has overloaded jails and prisons with defendants convicted as much for their mental diseases as for their acts," she says. Mercer argues that evidence at the sentencing phase of the trial proved that Kip Kinkle suffers from untreated mental illness. She believes that Kinkle should be incarcerated in a mental health facility for life rather than in the criminal justice system, which does not understand and is not equipped to handle the mentally ill. Special mental health courts should be established to deal with defendants like Kinkle, she contends, similar to successful drug courts. She acknowledges that the changes she is advocating will not work as long as society condones discrimination against the mentally ill. Today’s choice between incarcerating the seriously mentally ill who may be dangerous to themselves or others and releasing them onto the streets to fend for themselves should not be the only alternatives. It may be time, she says, to revisit the idea of secure state hospitals to house mentally ill people who pose a danger to society and to themselves.

Source: Kathleen Mercer, candidate for a doctor of jurisprudence degree at the UO School of Law, (541) 463-9748, home; (541) 346-1071, office; e-mail <kmercer@oregon.uoreogn.edu>.

The job market looks good for soon-to-be graduates of the University of Oregon School of Law. Approximately half of the 150 students who will graduate on Sunday, May 13, already have jobs. "Many will go directly to private firms and a few have landed prestigious government positions," says Merv Loya, director of the law school’s Career Services Office. Loya says if the class of 2001 follows the lead of last year’s graduates, 95 percent will be employed nine months out of law school. He says of those graduates, more than half stayed in Oregon, 49 percent took jobs with private firms and in business, and a record 48 percent took government and other public service positions, such as judicial clerkships or as prosecutors. Some graduates will go on to earn advanced law degrees. Those who chose private practice last year were paid record high salaries, with a high of $125,000 annually. The median salary for last year’s graduates was $40,000.

SOURCE: Merv Loya, assistant dean and director, UO School of Law Career Services Office, (541) 346-3887; e-mail <mloya@law.uoregon.edu>.

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