Hey, to our listeners, we have a very special guest with us on the podcast today. My attorney, Fran.

Hello, here I am. You've been on the podcast before years ago, and now you're back,

and I'm glad to have you. So, why don't you introduce yourself to podcast land and maybe where people

can find you? Hi, everybody. I'm Fran Schoepick, JD, MSW. My training is both as an MSW and as a JD.

The work that I do now as the lawyer is I represent people to the Department of Health when they have complaints against them, usually mental health workers, sometimes other health care providers, but also to the Department of Health when they have complaints against them, usually mental health workers,

sometimes other health care providers, but also to the Department of Health.

And then I also do risk management consultations on ethics and other practice issues.

Yeah. So disclaimers, for example, website disclosures.

So website disclosures I have my work as a lawyer here in Washington.

My website is francishopic.com. I also have two other projects. One is called the Working Alliance.

And what do you do there? What I do there with a colleague. We do templates for disclosure forms, disclosure statements,

which are also often referred to as informed consent. That comes from my work, helping people

with disclosure statements, because I personally feel that the disclosure statement is the single

most important risk management tool that you have at your disposal. It is super important.

If it's well written, and by well written, I mean it reflects how you work

and the choices that you make as a clinician,

if you put that stuff in the disclosure form so that people are on notice from the very start,

and if there's anything that people don't like, they can tell you or they don't

have to work with you. And you know, you can say, well, this is how I work. I'll give you a referral.

But to get that stuff addressed at the very beginning is just worth so much. And it saves people

so much trouble, so much heartache, so much money, if they have a complaint, it's amazing.

But it's not only having the language on the piece of paper or on the screen,

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