The half century of collaboration between the University of Virginia and the Commonwealth of Virginia in mental health law took root in the early 1970s, just as mental health law was emerging as a distinct field of legal and scientific study, encompassing both civil and criminal domains.

Three fountainhead judicial decisions in 1972 made that year a convenient marker for the origins of the field and the creation of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry,and Public Policy (ILPPP): Jackson v. Indiana (the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision barring indeterminate commitment of criminal defendants found incompetent to stand trial), Lessard v.Schmidt (a West Virginia Supreme Court decision tightening the criteria for involuntary civil commitment), and Wyatt v. Stickney (a federal district court class action in Alabama in which Judge Frank Johnson proclaimed the legal rights of institutionalized psychiatric patients and established a structure for implementing them).