Garden of Thought (Wrestling Soup Network): Mark Astor on the Baker Act, the Marchman Act, and Getting Families Out of Florida’s Mental Health System

Outlet: Garden of Thought (Wrestling Soup Network) | Appearance Type: Video Interview
Last reviewed July 10, 2026 by Mark Astor, Florida attorney.

AT A GLANCE

Mark Astor joined host Jeff Lippman on Garden of Thought for a deep dive into Florida’s Baker Act, Marchman Act, and guardianship laws.

They covered how families get control over an out-of-control situation, how the Baker Act can be misused, and what happens when someone violates a court-ordered treatment plan.

Mark also explained habeas corpus relief, how his firm handles cases from other states, and why the food at a treatment center matters more than people think.

SETTING THE SCENE

On July 3, 2026, Mark Astor appeared on Garden of Thought, a policy and legal discussion show hosted by Jeff Lippman on the Wrestling Soup Network.

The show is a change of pace from Jeff’s usual wrestling content. He also hosts wrestling shows like The MLW Files and It’s Not Mine.

This episode focused entirely on mental health law: how families can use Florida’s legal tools to help a loved one in crisis, and what goes wrong when the system fails them.

THE BREAKDOWN

Mark said his practice splits roughly into two halves. About 60% of the work is helping families get court-ordered control over a loved one’s substance use or mental health crisis.

The other 40% is getting people released from Florida’s Baker Act system when a hold has been misused.

He said the two sides collide more often than people expect. Even when his firm is the one putting someone into treatment, it’s operating under three different statutes: the Marchman Act, guardianship, and the Baker Act.

Used correctly, Mark said the Baker Act can be a genuinely life-saving tool. The problem is how easily it gets misused, since someone can end up locked in a state facility with nobody aware they’re there.

His background as both a former prosecutor and a former criminal defense attorney helps here, since the criminal justice system and the civil commitment system intersect more than families realize. He no longer takes criminal cases himself, but understanding that world still matters.

Massachusetts, where his firm also has an office, has its own versions of these laws. Its Baker Act equivalent is known as Section 12, and its Marchman Act equivalent is Section 35.

The difference, Mark said, is that Section 35 doesn’t let a family choose a private treatment center the way Florida’s laws do. He considers Florida’s laws, and its judges, especially strong on this issue, though he was clear that not every Florida county handles these cases equally well.

Jeff described Maryland’s rough equivalent: an emergency evaluation or wellness check, followed by a request for a protective order, with an initial hold that can run up to 96 hours before a public defender gets involved.

Mark agreed every state has some version of a Baker Act-style civil commitment law. In Florida, that typically starts with a 911 call and law enforcement stepping in directly, without a court order.

As a general rule, though, Mark said his firm avoids using that route offensively. Going through the probate division with a formal petition is usually the better path, and those filings are confidential.

The relief available through that process is broad. It can include an ex parte pickup order for an imminent risk, a treatment order lasting several months, access to medical records, travel restrictions, financial control, or even taking away a driver’s license.

What relief makes sense depends entirely on the family’s goals and how out of control the situation has become. Mark said the caseload itself has shifted over the last several years, following marijuana legalization in Florida and the isolation of the COVID years.

He opened his firm out of a local library in February 2016. He was broke at the time, with no money to open a real office, but motivated by what he’d seen happen in his own family and among close friends.

His early focus was mostly alcohol and recreational drug cases. COVID changed that. As people became more isolated, he started getting calls from other lawyers whose own clients were getting Baker Acted.

The common assumption at the time was that once someone is held, they’re stuck for at least 72 hours with no way out. Mark realized the Baker Act itself allows for habeas corpus relief, and started filing petitions.

Since then, he estimated he’s filed close to 900 habeas cases to get people released from Baker Act holds. He still gets three to five calls a day about people currently stuck in the system, or who feel wronged after getting out.

A writ of habeas corpus, Mark explained, is an old common law remedy. It essentially asks a court to require that a detained person be brought before it, and to explain why they’re being held.

His clients call in from all over the country, not just Florida and Massachusetts. He mentioned recent calls from California, Oregon, and Hawaii.

The pattern is usually the same. A family is exhausted from a loved one who won’t go to treatment, won’t take medication, or keeps cycling through what Mark calls the honeymoon period: a stretch of real progress in treatment before it falls apart.

Sometimes a family has already tried a legal order that didn’t work. Mark said the real question in those cases is enforceability. An order is only as good as the ability to actually enforce it if it’s violated.

His intake team spends real time figuring out what’s actually going on, and whether there’s enough evidence to prove a case. That can mean witnesses, admissions, or physical evidence like hidden alcohol containers.

For some families, going to court against their own adult child feels like too much. Mark said that discomfort is real, and part of the intake conversation is being honest about whether legal action is even the right next step.

When a case does move forward, it usually moves fast. An emergency Marchman Act petition can get an ex parte pickup order within about 24 hours. An emergency guardianship petition typically gets in front of a judge within two to four days.

The Marchman Act itself is narrow but powerful. It requires a clinical assessment before any treatment order, but that assessment can be triggered on an emergency basis, and the resulting order can commit someone to treatment for up to 90 days.

Guardianship offers more control. Mark described it as touching roughly a dozen specific legal rights, which can be assigned to a guardian depending on what the family actually needs, things a Marchman Act order alone doesn’t reach.

The two are sometimes filed together. A Marchman Act petition moves quickly to get someone into treatment, while a guardianship case builds the longer-term control a family may need afterward.

Even the initial 72-hour evaluation period has a silver lining, Mark said. It generates three days of documented observations from healthcare professionals, which can become useful evidence later.

He also clarified what guardianship legally means. An adult under guardianship is returned to something like the legal status of a minor child, with the guardian holding the authority a parent would normally have.

Success still depends heavily on geography within Florida. Palm Beach County has private entities that can perform the required Marchman Act assessment quickly. Other counties, particularly more rural ones, may only have an overwhelmed county facility, which can make getting that same assessment to the court much harder.

Mark shared one case involving another lawyer as a client, whose substance use put his own law firm’s trust account at risk. Even a minor mishandling of a trust account can end an attorney’s career, so guardianship became the tool to protect both the business and the person.

He noted that lawyers are, by his own estimate, about twice as likely as the general population to develop a substance use disorder. He credited the pressure of the profession, and the kind of person it tends to attract.

Mark is an approved continuing legal education provider in Florida and speaks to bar groups throughout the year. He tells every room of lawyers the same thing: if you have a problem, the Florida Bar will genuinely try to help you, confidentially, if you ask before something goes wrong.

On fees, Mark said habeas corpus and release cases are typically billed as a flat fee. Cases involving a Marchman Act or guardianship petition usually start with a non-refundable retainer, billed hourly against it, with any unused balance returned to the client.

On what happens when someone doesn’t comply, Mark said there are really only two ways a person legally ends up locked up: the state does it through jail or a mental health facility, or a judge does it by holding someone in contempt for violating a treatment order.

A private treatment facility can’t physically restrain someone who wants to leave. What changes the incentive is that leaving violates the court order, and that can mean a contempt hearing and possible jail time.

Enforcement varies sharply by county. In parts of North Florida, Mark said a judge might skip the hearing entirely and issue a bench warrant the moment someone walks out of treatment. In South Florida, the same violation usually requires a formal motion for contempt and a scheduled hearing first.

Mark said most people, once they understand the alternative is county jail, choose to go back to treatment. He half-joked that the food is a bigger factor in that decision than people assume, and that he asks about meal quality on every facility visit.

Guardianship also gives a family tools a Marchman Act order doesn’t, including the ability to restrict travel or request a no-fly list. Mark described a case where a client’s daughter left treatment, flew to Mexico, and had to be located and brought back by his own investigator.

His firm’s practice reaches well beyond Florida. He described bringing people to Florida for treatment from other states, including working with out-of-state counsel and domesticating another state’s guardianship order in a Florida court to enforce it locally.

Mark closed with a direct message to families who feel like they’ve run out of options. In his experience, that often isn’t actually true, and a conversation about what’s available doesn’t have to end in hiring him.

He pointed to free resources first: roughly 1,200 videos on his firm’s YouTube channel, and a free nine-chapter book on the Marchman Act available on his website.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The following questions are drawn directly from Mark Astor’s analysis during this segment.

KEY LEGAL TERMS REFERENCES IN THIS SEGMENT

Baker Act (Florida Mental Health Act): Florida’s law allowing emergency examination of someone believed, due to mental illness, to pose a danger to themselves or others. (Fla. Stat. §§ 394.451, 394.453, 394.463)

Marchman Act: Florida’s law allowing families to petition a court for involuntary assessment and treatment of a loved one with a substance use disorder, including an initial treatment order of up to 90 days. (Fla. Stat. § 397.675; initial order duration, § 397.697)

Guardianship (used for behavioral health cases): A court process that returns an adult to something like the legal status of a minor, giving a designated guardian authority over specific decisions the person can’t safely make alone.

Writ of habeas corpus: A remedy requiring that a detained person be brought before a court, with an explanation for the detention. Florida’s Baker Act statute specifically allows a petition for this relief. (Fla. Stat. § 394.459(8))

Ex parte order: A court order granted after hearing from only one side, typically used for emergency situations where there isn’t time for a full hearing first.

Motion for contempt / show cause: A request asking a court to enforce a prior order by holding someone accountable for violating it, the mechanism used when someone leaves court-ordered treatment.

Domestication of a foreign judgment: A legal process for getting a Florida court to formally recognize and enforce a court order issued in another state, so a family doesn’t have to go back to that other state to enforce it.

Massachusetts Section 12 and Section 35: The Massachusetts equivalents of Florida’s Baker Act and Marchman Act, referenced by Mark in this segment. These are Massachusetts state laws, not Florida Statutes, and are described here in general terms rather than by exact chapter and section citation.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Astor Simovitch Law splits roughly 60/40 between getting families court-ordered control (Marchman Act and guardianship) and getting people released from Baker Act holds.
• A habeas corpus petition is Mark’s tool for challenging a Baker Act hold, and he’s filed close to 900 of them since COVID.
• Massachusetts has its own versions of these laws, but its Marchman Act equivalent doesn’t let a family choose a private treatment center the way Florida’s does.
• Success depends heavily on which Florida county a case is filed in, since assessment resources and judicial familiarity vary widely.
• Violating a Marchman Act treatment order can lead to a contempt hearing and jail, though enforcement approach varies sharply by county.
• Free resources, roughly 1,200 YouTube videos and a free Marchman Act book, are available before anyone needs to book a paid consultation.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is a best-effort reconstruction. The original source (an automatic transcript from Sounder.AI) had no speaker labels or diarization at all, unlike the transcripts used for prior posts. Speaker attribution for the direct legal Q&A is high-confidence; attribution for casual banter sections is lower-confidence and should be checked against the original audio before publishing. See editor notes at the end of this document for the full correction log.

Jeff: Good evening everyone, welcome to Garden of Thought, presented on the Sports Jedi Wrestling Podcast Network, live on the network and of course later on the download, both on the Sports Jedi Wrestling Podcast Network and of course the Garden of Thought platform itself. We’re delving back into the area of law this week, and I’m trying to sort of nibble around the edges of healthcare law one topic at a time, and ones that are of major issues. So like every time somebody gets shot, one side says, get rid of the guns, and the other one says, they’re crazy leftists or crazy rightists, and then someone says, well, it’s mental health, and then the same people help hollow out the mental health system, which is not really a great solution, and it’s a frustrating system for a lot of people.

Jeff: Obviously it differs from state to state and place to place and country to country, because we have international listeners too. I can tell you I have gone through this indirectly in my own six degrees of separation, and it can be very tough. And luckily we have an expert today, Attorney Mark Astor from the Mental Health and Addiction Law Firm, with locations both in Boca Raton and Boston, so he’s got your whole I-95 corridor covered there, and also the Baker Act Attorneys, and we’re gonna talk about all that stuff. Mark, thanks so much for being here.

Mark Astor: Well, first of all, thank you for having me as a guest. It’s nice to see you.

Jeff: Nice to see you too. Is that Australian or British, or what am I listening to?

Mark Astor: So I’m originally from England. I’ve been in the US for thirty-nine years, so I’ve been here two thirds of my life, so maybe I’ve got a bit of a twang. It depends if I’m with my fellow English when it comes back.

Jeff: So I think if you combine an Englishman with an American, you get an Australian.

Mark Astor: That’s exactly what happens. Or maybe a South African, that too. Yeah.

Jeff: In any event, tell the good folks a little bit about yourself.

Mark Astor: So, as you pointed out, I’m an attorney. This is my thirty-second year of practice. Our main office is here in Palm Beach County, Florida, and together with my wife, ten years ago, I co-founded a law firm with the mission to save families whose loved ones are suffering from substance use, mental health disorders, and failed attempts at recovery. We are speaking to families from all over the country, moms and dads who have an adult child with a long history of drug use, mental illness, treatment that doesn’t work, if they’ll even go, they’re probably medication non-compliant, they may well have been a guest of the state through either the criminal justice system or the mental health system, and maybe even had an overdose, and the family calls us to fix that problem. So that’s what we do.

Jeff: Okay, well, I mean, I think that itself begs its own question. Go through your typical scenarios, one at a time if you like, or grouped together, whatever you’re more comfortable with. I’m sure you’ve done a similar type of presentation multiple times. What are the solutions, the options, that you can advise clients on, where you can help them and make material changes that they most likely couldn’t do on their own?

Mark Astor: Yeah, so there’s two halves to the practice, and you mentioned the Baker Act. About sixty percent of the work we’re doing is giving families control over what is typically an out-of-control situation, when you’ve got a loved one with either a substance use disorder or a mental health disorder, or a combination of both. The other forty percent is where we are getting people out of Florida’s broken, draconian mental health system, where they’re detained under Florida’s Baker Act. But what folks don’t understand is that sometimes those two worlds collide. What I mean is, even when we’re putting somebody into treatment, we’re operating under three statutes: the Marchman Act, guardianship, and the Baker Act. If you use the Baker Act statute correctly, it can be a very powerful, life-saving tool. What happens is it’s very easily abused. It’s easy for someone to get locked up in a state facility and nobody actually knows they’re there. And that’s when I get the phone call, can you get them out? And the answer is yes. But again, those two worlds collide. I was a prosecutor for many years, and I was also a criminal defense attorney for many years. That comes in handy sometimes, because the criminal world also interacts with the civil commitment world. I don’t take those cases anymore, I send them to a colleague, but understanding how the criminal justice system works is very important, because if somebody gets arrested and gets sucked into the criminal justice system, and you don’t understand how those two worlds work, they can end up getting stuck there. Now you’ve got the state in your life through either the criminal justice system or the mental health system, and the family’s basically left powerless. So it’s about getting control over what is usually an out-of-control situation.

Jeff: Are there major differences between Florida and the other offices in Boston?

Mark Astor: Yeah, so Massachusetts has its own versions of the statutes that we use. Our Baker Act is their Section 12. Our Marchman Act is their Section 35. But especially with Section 35 in Massachusetts, it doesn’t give you the option to use a private treatment center. For a lot of families, they want to be able to make that decision, decide where their loved one’s going, because not all treatment centers are created equally, and one may be more clinically appropriate than another. I’m a big advocate, and not just because I’m here in Florida, but we have great treatment here, two or three treatment centers I work with that I would send my own family to. The laws that we have here I think are second to none, and our judges, especially in South Florida, are really switched on to this stuff, and they understand we’re trying to get somebody help and trying to give the family some control. Now, not all counties in Florida are created equal. There might be some counties where I wouldn’t file one type of case, but might file something different. So understanding how the different jurisdictions work within Florida is also very important to getting success.

Jeff: I’m in Maryland, close to Maryland and DC, and I don’t believe we have anything that’s an equivalent of the Baker Act. The closest we have is emergency evaluations, some people call it a wellness check, and involuntary admissions, which usually requires that you go as a, you know, apply for a protective order, a peace order. But then you have to show this is not really as much a criminal concern directly, though indirectly there’s fear for the well-being, health, and safety of somebody, but it’s because the person isn’t in their right mind, so you’re almost making a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity argument for them. Even then, somebody can be involuntarily held for something like a period of ninety-six hours before they can be evaluated, and then a public defender gets assigned, and eventually the judge lets them out, usually because they’re in basically a mental ward of a hospital that’s basically a prison, and as you’re saying, it’s not really an institution meant for healing, it’s meant for incarceration, just a different kind of incarceration. And as a parent, that can be heartbreaking, or as a relative, or a friend, or a spouse. It is nice to have other options, but unless you have money for those other options, and even then, if someone’s over eighteen, it’s not cooperative, guardianship may have to come into play, and someone’s got to be served if they’re running about, there’s no due process usually without someone being served. I imagine these are all things you encounter. I’ll let you take them in whatever order you feel is appropriate, or correct anything I’ve said that doesn’t apply.

Mark Astor: No, it sounds like we’re on the same page. Every state has a version of the Baker Act, that kind of statute where if I was actively suicidal, you could pick up the phone, call 911, and have law enforcement come and basically detain me under that civil commitment statute. And that’s what tends to happen here in Florida.

Mark Astor: But as a general rule, we don’t use it offensively, in other words, to get somebody committed unless we absolutely have to, because it’s obviously a lot quicker than running to court and filing a petition with a judge. As a general rule, we’re seeking relief in what we call the probate division here in Florida, and these are confidential filings as a general rule. It’s anything from, let’s get somebody picked up on an ex parte pickup order if we can show there’s an imminent risk, to let’s send them to treatment for the next three months, to now we need access to their medical records so we can see what’s going on. We want to restrict their ability to travel so they don’t leave the state. Perhaps they have financial resources we want to control, deciding where they live, who they spend time with, making sure they take their medication. If we really want to get into the nitty gritty, we can apply for some type of government benefits on their behalf, we could even take away a driver’s license. Again, it depends on what the family wants, what their goals are, how out of control things are. And as we’ve gone through the last ten years, and we’ve legalized marijuana here in Florida, and we had COVID, the kinds of cases we’re dealing with from a clinical perspective have changed dramatically, which makes them more challenging. It makes people more unpredictable.

Jeff: Do you think social isolation has factored into that? I work from home, I love working from home, but there’s something about not interacting with people live and in person on a daily basis. Also, you get fatter because you don’t have to walk around as much.

Mark Astor: Yeah, I’m with you on that, or at least I did.

Jeff: I know there are kids who were in school who really felt it was a trauma to not be in school, which is funny, because when you’re in school, all they want to do is not be in school. But also, with social media and things like this podcast, I’m sitting here on my office couch, because wherever my butt is, that’s my office and my leisure. Is that a factor? Are you seeing a spike because of that? And I’m sure affordability issues are part of it as well.

Mark Astor: So I think two things really shifted the focus of our cases. By way of background, when I opened up the office, I did so out of the local library in February of 2016. At the time I was broke, I had no money to open up a real office, but I was pretty motivated, and I had a real mission to help a group of people because of things that had happened in my family and close friends’ families. So my focus back then was really alcohol and any kind of recreational drug. Then COVID came along, and what COVID did was, as you correctly pointed out, people became isolated. I started getting a lot of calls from other lawyers saying, hey, our clients are getting Baker Acted, they’re getting sucked into Florida’s mental health system, and the common opinion is once you’re there, you can’t get out, at least for seventy-two hours. Well, one of the things the statute contemplates is habeas relief. I said, well, it sounds like I need to file a habeas petition. And after that, it just took off like a rocket. I think I’ve filed almost nine hundred cases at this point since COVID to get people out of the system, and I get three, four, five calls every single day about people who are stuck in the system, or who got stuck and now they’re out but feel like they got wronged. That’s an interesting topic in and of itself.

Jeff: So before we go too far along, tell the audience what habeas means.

Mark Astor: Yes, so habeas, way back when we were governed by the common law, is an extraordinary writ. It basically says, bring the body before the court, explain why you’re holding this person. It can be filed in certain civil proceedings here in Florida, and also in a criminal proceeding. It just so happens that relief is codified in our Baker Act statute, and it says you can petition the court for habeas relief.

Jeff: Yeah, there’s all these terms in law, habeas corpus, mandamus, and sometimes they’re very specific to who you’re asking to do something. If you’re asking a private party, that’s generally specific performance. But if you’re asking the government, you’re asking for mandamus, and it’s basically the same thing. It may be different in Florida and Boston and Utah and Oklahoma than it is in Maryland. But the crazy words we have to know, I guess we have to seem important, so, yeah, definitely.

Mark Astor: Two lawyers who don’t take ourselves too seriously. I’ve met a few others, but let’s go with that, that we’re two of two.

Jeff: I’m sure your wife is the same way, right?

Mark Astor: She does. My wife is amazing, she’s brilliant in her own right, a better lawyer than me. I’d like to give credit where it’s due.

Jeff: Yeah, my wife’s a better lawyer than me too, but she’s not a lawyer, so there you go. She’s one of those people who can actually study something and absorb everything she reads, and me, it’s like I’ll start reading and, well, that’s why I do a podcast.

Jeff: So what’s the typical process? What’s the A to B? And obviously the prequel is what are your clients going through before they hit the system, and then before they get to you.

Mark Astor: Yeah, so typically the client calling us is a mom and dad calling from somewhere in the country. We certainly service this area, but also out west, we’ve had calls from California and Oregon, and a client from Hawaii. They’re all calling for the same basic reason, they’re tired of dealing with the chaos. They may have tried to get their loved one to treatment, and they’re either dealing with somebody who won’t go because they’re adamant there’s nothing wrong with them, or they won’t take their medications, or maybe they went to treatment and then left, and they go through this cycle, I call it the honeymoon period, where they go in, they’re there for a period of time, seven, ten days, maybe two weeks, and all of a sudden the hard work starts and they bounce, and this goes on for years. Or they start taking medications and feel better, well, now they feel fine, why do they need the medications? And we go through this cycle. They may even have tried the legal route, but for whatever reason it didn’t work, and I’ve heard that before, oh, that doesn’t work. Okay, well, we need to figure out what that actually means. Because these court orders are only as good as their enforceability. If it doesn’t give me the ability to seek relief for a violation, then what good is it? So you’ve got to really examine what’s been going on, why hasn’t the person stayed, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked and why, and what are your goals, what are you hoping to accomplish. Those are some of the things we go through when somebody calls us. For the first seven years it was just me and my wife. We’re lucky now, we have an intake team, and they spend a period of time going through all of this and finding out what’s been going on. The other issue, as lawyers, we’re always concerned with what can we prove. Sometimes parents will say, well, I haven’t seen him in six months. Okay, well, how do you know there’s a problem? Well, I just know, and I’m sure they do, but we have to have witnesses who can provide evidence. Have there been admissions? Did you find anything in the house, like paraphernalia? Typically, one of the things alcoholics like to do is hide empty alcohol containers all over the house, in the laundry, in their car, they’ll bury it in the garden, anything. What have you found, what have they told you, those types of things. We’re always asking, can we prove the case? And for some families, maybe there’s another option, because we’re now talking about potentially having mom and dad take an adversarial position against an adult child, and for some families that’s very uncomfortable, and I get it. Going to court is scary, lawyers are scary, being in front of a judge is scary, because it’s the unknown. So it’s about finding out what we have and what the family wants to do. If we’re going to move forward, typically our cases are all filed as some type of emergency, which means we’re going to get an ex parte order, probably within twenty-four hours, or we’re going to be in front of a judge, even on a guardianship, because you can seek emergency relief under our guardianship statute too, probably within two to four days we’re going to be in court. Things move rather rapidly in my world, because by the time they get to us, they’re saying, okay, we need to do this right now.

Jeff: You think there’d be a bigger market on adopting retired drug-sniffing dogs for this kind of situation? They’d help you find the evidence better. What is a drastic recourse in your practice? Is guardianship considered very drastic, or are you seeking some sort of involuntary institutionalization beyond the evaluation, or is there some means to seek ordered institutionalization, whether state or private? What is the hardest thing, short of the criminal justice system, that you have to go through, and then we can go backwards to intermediary steps before that?

Mark Astor: Yeah, so we’re basically operating on two tracks. We have the Marchman Act here, which as I said is similar to Mass Section 35, and that’s a really special statute, I’d say it’s unique to Florida, I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it. I know Kentucky has Casey’s Law, but what we have here in Florida, especially South Florida, is a very unique statute, and that’s for where there’s a primary substance use disorder, drug use. What’s interesting about the Marchman Act is that it’s two pieces, assessment and treatment, and the court’s not going to order treatment without an assessment, it’s required under the statute. But that assessment period can be initiated on an emergency ex parte basis, so I could file my petition, the court looks at the four corners of the document, says, yep, sounds like an emergency, Mister Astor, and directs the sheriff to go and get this person. I’ve got a whole team of retired cops on my staff, so they normally work with the sheriff’s office. Depending on the county and how busy the court is, I can normally get a pickup order in two, three, four hours, and get somebody picked up and taken to a place of safety where we can keep them initially for seventy-two hours. Then they’re entitled to due process, and we get back in front of a judge, normally within ten days, for a full evidentiary hearing if it’s needed, though they may just agree to stay. That allows me to put people into treatment for periods of ninety days. But it’s very narrow in its relief, it’s just a court order that says Mark’s going to treatment for ninety days because there’s a primary substance use disorder. For other families, they might want more control, and that’s where the guardianship piece comes in. There we’re talking about taking away about a dozen rights under our guardianship statute, and we might be filing a Marchman Act and a guardianship together, because the Marchman Act is really quick, I can get that ex parte order, but guardianship gives me those twelve rights I can potentially assign to the guardian, a lot more control. So doing both together can be good. And sometimes, in the middle of this, somebody really has a total breakdown and ends up getting Baker Acted from within the treatment program, now they’re in a facility that can provide a higher level of care. All three statutes tend to work together, because in one form or another, there’s involuntary commitment involved. Understanding how this all works together can be confusing for families, and I think that’s what separates us, being able to help untangle that, and explain how they weave together, rather than being blockades to one another.

Jeff: A couple things come to mind. One is that even if somebody is involuntarily evaluated for seventy-two hours, while that may not be satisfying, there are three days of healthcare professionals making observations, so now you’ve got witnesses too, assuming the initial evaluation was under correct premises, they’re probably going to confirm this person needs help, so that’s good to have as expert witnesses. I also want to clarify for the audience what guardianship means. If you’re an adult, guardianship reverts you back to the legal status of a minor child, and the guardian has the status your parents had when you were a minor. You don’t lose the right not to be abused, but you can’t make any legal decisions for yourself, in an overly simplistic way of putting it.

Mark Astor: That’s pretty much a perfect way to describe it.

Jeff: It sounds like, because Florida has taken such a progressive approach to this, it’s a little easier than the standard I’m used to hearing about. To get somebody into that initial evaluation period, it seems herculean elsewhere without the person’s consent, they literally need to be doing something in front of law enforcement or a social worker for that to happen. It puts a lot on the citizenry, and I don’t know about your experience, but people don’t really want to get involved. The government is supposed to protect and serve, and when it doesn’t, that’s a blow. But it sounds like in Florida, especially with an office like yours that knows how to phrase things the way the court understands, you have a much better chance of clearing that initial bar, and sometimes that initial step is really the only thing you need to trigger everything else.

Mark Astor: You’re spot on. Again, there are certain parts of Florida that aren’t as switched on as other parts. For instance, the Marchman Act requires that assessment. In Palm Beach County, there are private entities that will do this for me, and if it’s private in nature and the family has insurance or resources to pay for it, you have a little more control. But some counties don’t have that. There’s still the Deep South of Florida, and you’ve got one option, the county facility. Good luck getting that facility to actually transmit the assessment to the court, because the court requires it, and the qualified professional has to give the court that opinion, but try getting into court, they don’t always care, you have to issue a subpoena to force it. So there might be parts of the state where I wouldn’t file a Marchman Act case, because I know I’m never going to get past that assessment, but I might file for guardianship instead, because I’m going to get a hearing in front of the judge, the statute says the court shall conduct a hearing. It just depends on knowing the lay of the land you’re operating under, and which counties are better for filing certain things than others. Navigating that terrain is the whole game, because it’s not one size fits all.

Jeff: By the way, Palm Beach County, is my shirt from the Four Seasons in Manalapan?

Mark Astor: It might be, I’d have to ask my wife where she got it. This is actually a staff shirt.

Jeff: So what’s the timeline on your guardianship emergency petitions, you said usually within a week, two or three business days, that’s pretty quick. What’s at least the standard for your allegations in a guardianship petition, the minimum standard to get that hearing?

Mark Astor: If we’re filing an emergency petition, we’ve got to show some type of imminent threat, either to the person or their property. I’ve had a lawyer client, I’ve actually put a couple of lawyers into treatment, and represented others. Lawyers can be very challenging clients, because they know it all, even the stuff they don’t know, they know that too, they’ll figure it out. Our profession has the highest incidence of alcoholism, we’re twice as likely to develop a substance use disorder. Normally the imminent threat is just to the person, they’re doing things we wouldn’t consider objectively reasonable, maybe they’re not eating, an eating disorder case for instance, or abusing medication, sleeping all day, up all night, hanging out with strangers, losing weight, not bathing, can’t hold down a job, flunking out of school, driving high or intoxicated. When it comes to business, this lawyer I mentioned had a law firm, his wife, like mine, was his partner. We needed to get control of not just the operating account so we could pay bills, but the trust account, because you and I both know, even sniff at the trust account the wrong way, mail your bar card back, you’re out of the game for five years. So we filed for guardianship. Or maybe there’s property, or we just need to be able to pay someone’s rent, electricity bill, or car payment. The guardianship piece can be tailored to the kind of relief we really need. Most of the time we’re talking about getting emergency relief to get this person into treatment, get them into a stable environment, make sure they take their medication, and we want access to their medical records so we can see what’s going on, because with the Marchman Act, somebody might refuse to sign a release of information, and mom and dad can’t find out what’s going on, because little Johnny’s a little ticked off he got sent to treatment for the next three months when he was happy sitting at home.

Jeff: You said earlier we could have a discussion about substance abuse and whether it’s specific to lawyers. I’m more than happy to learn from the guest who’s actually here with the expertise.

Mark Astor: Our profession is rampant with it. Statistically speaking, we’re twice as likely to have somebody with a substance use disorder, and I think that’s a combination of things. Being a lawyer is stressful, it doesn’t matter what area of law you practice. If you’re filing something in court, there’s pressure, clients want it done quickly, done right, and they want to win at all costs, even if they have to call the judge themselves, which I’ve had happen. It’s a high-pressure profession, but I think to a certain extent it also attracts a certain type of individual, one who wants to go to court and fight. I do a lot of CLEs for lawyers, I got myself approved as a CLE provider in the state of Florida, and I’m going to be speaking to three or four different bar associations before the end of the year. Every time I speak to a group of lawyers, whether it’s ten or fifty, at the end of my CLE I tell them, if anyone in the audience has a problem, you’re welcome to call me. The Florida Bar will really bend over backwards to help a lawyer who’s got a problem, and you can call them confidentially and they will help you. But if you don’t ask for help and you do something silly, like get pinched for a DUI, you’re going to get disciplined by the bar. So I tell every group of lawyers, if you have a problem and don’t want to call the bar, call me, we’ll have a confidential conversation and I’ll connect you with resources, and normally, without fail, somebody calls. That’s the nature of what we do. It is stressful, and I’ve had to be mindful of my own well-being over the years, because I love helping people, but not every client has reasonable expectations about what we can do. You’re typically dealing with either the worst, or most important, or both, things going on in their life, at least at that point in time.

Jeff: And just so anybody who didn’t figure it out, CLE stands for continuing legal education. It’s okay, I’m the straw man for the audience out here. A lot of the shows I do are with academics and authorities, esoteric and arcane subjects, and sometimes they scoff at my questions, they’re all very nice about it, but you can see it on their face. I go, just remember, you’re talking to an idiot, don’t expect me to know the difference between certain legal terms, explain it to me like I’m an idiot, because in this case, I am.

Jeff: So what’s the typical anatomy of finding a client, accepting the client, are they paying you hourly, is part of it maybe a contingency if you apply for disability or Social Security? You have to make money to run a business, unless you’re a non-profit, you can’t help people without being able to help yourself.

Mark Astor: It depends on the case. The habeas corpus cases, where we’re getting people out, that’s a flat fee, people pay me a fee to get their loved one out as quickly as possible. The other types of cases, a portion is a non-refundable retainer, and then we bill hourly against it. There’s a basic retainer that gives us enough to get the job done, covers our time in the case up to that point, and then additional fees bill against that retainer, and whatever’s left at the end goes back to the client.

Jeff: So what are the different levels of institutions, ranging from private inpatient? All I know about rehab is what I’ve seen on TV, some of it from Doctor Drew, celebrity rehab, TV shows that are overly dramatized. Basically what I know is generally the person can leave any time they want, people come and go. But there have to be different levels. As you mentioned, there was a ninety-day order, obviously that person can’t leave, but can they be restrained, or are they just violating the order if they leave? What are the different levels of assistance, ranging from something less formal to different degrees of voluntary or semi-involuntary, inpatient, to basically institutionalization, a secure situation, prison-esque without being prison?

Mark Astor: So, as I tell families, sometimes they’ll say, we’ve been through the ringer, I just want you to lock them up. Okay, there are only two ways you’re getting locked up. Either the state locks you up, county jail or a state mental health system, where they can physically lock the doors, or a judge locks you up because you violated a court order. As a general rule, we’re putting people into treatment, and even though it may be an involuntary commitment order, an order that says Mark’s going to treatment for the next ninety days, the facility, even a county facility where I’m court-ordered to go, if I want to walk out, they’re not going to restrain me, they’re not allowed to. If I’m in a private facility, my mom and dad or the insurance company has paid the freight, they’re still not going to restrain me, because they don’t have any legal right to falsely imprison me. But if I walk out, there are going to be consequences, because I violated the court order. Before I went into treatment, the judge said to me, Mark, I’m ordering you into treatment, and if you violate that and this case comes back before me and the allegation’s proven, I have the right to throw you in jail, hold you in contempt, send you away for some period of time. I’m not trying to threaten you, I’m just letting you know how this works, are we on the same page. Again, it depends which county you’re in. In South Florida, I’ve got to file a motion for contempt, a show cause motion, asking the judge to bring the person back in for a hearing, and if the court finds they violated the order, it can sanction them by throwing them in jail. If I’m up in Tallahassee, there’s a judge up there, if he finds out you left treatment, he doesn’t need a hearing, he’ll just issue a bench warrant and tell the cops to go find you and bring you to the county jail. Again, it depends where you are. But as a general rule, what makes these proceedings work, since they’re civil in nature, is enforceability, my ability to go back to court and seek relief from the judge. I’ll tell you, as a general rule, I think maybe one time I’ve had somebody placed in jail for a week, but it rarely happens, because most people, even though they don’t want to go to treatment, would rather be in treatment than in county jail, usually because the food’s better in treatment. Do you know the number one reason people leave treatment? The food. So when I visit treatment centers, I ask, how’s the food here, is it any good, do you have a chef, are you taking care of people’s dietary needs, or are you feeding them junk? Because if you’re feeding someone junk food on top of a chemical imbalance, the last thing you should be doing is feeding them more chemicals through their food. People will generally say, okay, I guess I’ll go back to treatment. I’ve had a judge say, here’s what I’m doing, I’m going to find you in contempt and let you purge that contempt, so I don’t throw you in jail, if you agree to go back, do you want treatment or do you want to sit in the county jail? Most people choose treatment. It’s the enforceability and accountability that makes it work. Some families have said, well, I don’t want him to go to jail. Well, then there’s no point in doing this, because there have to be consequences for not doing what needs to be done, otherwise this is going to continue, and like any disease, it’s progressive, it’s going to get worse. It’s uncomfortable, but you’ve got to follow through if they keep violating.

Jeff: I guess there are two choices then, you either file for permanent guardianship if it was temporary, or is there an option where the judge says, now you’re involuntary, I’m not sending you to jail, we’re going to send you to a treatment center where they can restrain you, is there such a thing?

Mark Astor: Not really, but there are some facilities that are what I’d call semi-secure, meaning you’d need something like a security badge to get a door to open, so some facilities are more secure than others. This happened once with a lawyer client who didn’t want to listen, we put his daughter in a facility out in West Palm Beach County, a real treatment center, three buildings in the middle of sugarcane fields, sugarcane as far as you could see. I figured, if she walks out, where’s she going, she’s ten or fifteen miles from civilization. Unfortunately, the judge who heard the case, in his infinite wisdom, let her have her cell phone for the first twenty-four hours, and I said, judge, not a good idea. The first night she was there, she called an Uber and jumped on a plane. I said to the father, we should file for guardianship, because then I can restrict her ability to travel, ask TSA to put her on a no-fly list so she can’t jump on a plane. She’d already gotten on a plane to Mexico by then. I sent my investigator down, he found her and brought her back. The point is, you can only restrict somebody so much.

Jeff: And not everyone has access to an investigator who can fly down to Mexico and bring somebody back. It sounds like you have both a national practice and the ability to do some rather extraordinary things. So I know we’ve been talking about Florida and my part, Maryland and Boston, but I don’t want to shortchange the fact that your practice is national, your reach goes much further than that too.

Mark Astor: Yeah, even though I’m a Florida-based lawyer, we’re bringing people into treatment here. I’m normally either getting someone here, or getting them here, and we’re pretty good at it. It might involve telling them a little white lie to come to Florida for treatment, it might involve working with counsel in another state, maybe getting a guardianship in another state and using that as the vehicle to move the person to Florida. Then I can go to court and ask a Florida judge to domesticate, a legal proceeding where I get a Florida judge to recognize, say, a Pennsylvania or Maryland court order. So if there’s a problem down here, I can seek enforcement in Florida instead of having to run back to Maryland. There’s a number of ways to get people down here. Geography is a challenge, but knowing how to overcome it and get them into a jurisdiction where you’re well known and know how to navigate it gets them their best shot at success. It might be a bigger financial investment, but the chances of success, or at least predictable outcomes, are much more in their favor. So an educated client, or giving a client the full lay of the land, is pretty important.

Jeff: I’m sure over the course of the last forty minutes we’ve spoken, there have been things you wanted to bring up, or things I should have asked that I haven’t. So this is your chance, anything I didn’t bring up that should be part of what you normally talk about?

Mark Astor: Yeah, and I appreciate the opportunity. This is really directed to the families out there who feel like they’ve run out of options. I totally get it, I’ve spoken to literally thousands of families over the years, and a lot of them feel like there’s nothing else they can do. If there’s any message I can give, it’s that that may not be true, and I’d encourage you to pick up the phone and have a conversation with us about what options might be available. It may not even involve me. The other thing I’d tell you is I try to give away as much information as I can for free. On our YouTube channel there are twelve hundred videos, you can watch them until the cows come home, and they talk all about these issues. I make about two or three videos every single day, and they’re all on the YouTube channel and our website. I have a brand new book I wrote all about the Marchman Act, it’s nine chapters, written and video, and all you have to do is click the link, give us your name and email, and we’ll send you the book for free. There’s a lot of content out there that people should have access to, and they shouldn’t have to call a lawyer and pay a lawyer just to get the right information. There’s also a lot of misinformation out there. People are now going to ChatGPT for legal advice, and other platforms too, and unfortunately those platforms don’t always give the right advice, because they’ve probably never handled the kind of cases you and I would actually handle.

Jeff: Let’s see what we can do to help you, let’s read the YouTube address, since people watching can see it, but for audio, it’s h-t-t-p-s colon slash slash www dot YouTube dot com slash at A-S-T-O-R-S-I-M-O-V-I-T-C-H-L-A-W, no spaces, Astor Simovitch Law, one word. And why don’t you say the phone number?

Mark Astor: It’s 561-419-6095. And the website is Mental Health Addiction Law Firm dot com.

Jeff: Mental Health Addiction Law Firm dot com. And actually, if people just Google your name, your videos will probably come up on the first page, there’s a boatload of content. I’ve done some local TV, and I was just on Fox talking about some of this stuff, so I shouldn’t be hard to find.

Mark Astor: It would be very difficult for me to hide.

Jeff: Well, if you do, I’ll get your own investigator to find you and bring you back. That’s how he gets paid, right? Very good. Well, you’re doing the Lord’s work, or for people who are non-religious, doing good work. It’s hard and it’s complicated, but it sounds like you’re the guy for it, you’ve got the resources and the connections within your office, or your six degrees of separation, to help make a very difficult situation better, if people are just willing to make that commitment, to call and ask for help, and then either find the resources you make available, or retain your office.

Mark Astor: Correct.

Jeff: Okay, well, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you to the audience here. For those of you who are new to Garden of Thought, especially those on the Sports Jedi network, maybe you were expecting a pro wrestler or something, but every other week or so, usually mid-week, I have shows that are more policy, legal, business, science, or tech based, sometimes fun and fantastical. I had a guy on once with seventeen patents on robots, sure he’s going to destroy the world, but I’m a lawyer too, and I like to visit the law, especially when it’s about things that are either very interesting, niche, or that I think everyone would benefit from knowing about, and this is exactly that. Mister Astor came into my feed, and I invited him, and he said yes, and I think this is great information. So thanks so much for being here.

Mark Astor: Thank you so much.

Jeff: If you want to follow me for wrestling content, you can find me on X at those underscore evil. For non-wrestling content on X, which is mostly dormant, at Atticus LND. I spend a lot of time lately on the Sports Jedi network, and hopefully that’ll continue. Garden of Thought, you can also find here on Sports Jedi, or on its own podcast feed, its own YouTube channel, at Garden of Thought Pod. I should probably clean some of that up. Also on the Wrestling Soup Network, I do a couple shows, The MLW Files with my best friend Thomas Erstwhile of MLW Wrestling, and on Wrestling Soup, my flagship show, It’s Not Mine, I’m the co-host, LuFisto, the Legend, is the host, and we review lucha libre and Mighty Mighty on the Wrestling Soup Network. So thanks everyone, thanks to our guest, and you’ll hear from us next time. Thank you.

ABOUT MARK ASTOR

Mark Astor spent the early part of his career as an Assistant State Attorney in Palm Beach County, Florida, where he prosecuted thousands of criminal cases and served as Chief of two County Court Divisions.

He brings that background into his role as a legal analyst, which is why producers at FOX News, LiveNOW from FOX, and local CBS and ABC affiliates call him when a complex criminal case needs a clear explanation.

His law practice is a different matter. Mark Astor and Astor Simovitch Law focus exclusively on behavioral health law: helping Florida families navigate Marchman Act petitions, Baker Act proceedings, and the legal intervention process when a loved one is in a mental health or addiction crisis and refuses help.

If that’s the situation you’re in, schedule a free confidential consultation or call us at 561-419-6095.

A NOTE ON MARK ASTOR’S MEDIA COMMENTARY

Mark Astor’s appearances as a legal analyst cover a wide range of legal cases in the news. This commentary draws on his background as a former prosecutor and his 30-plus years of courtroom experience.

It does not represent the services offered by Astor Simovitch Law, which does not handle criminal defense matters. For criminal defense needs, please consult an attorney who practices in that area.