not sure about any MA info but i can offer some experience.
i'm about your brothers age and have been through similiar circumstances. i was recently classified as totally disabled by SS and it was a long learning experience. my disabilty was not ADHD related but as i work toward recovery it was a factor.
is your brother primarily looking for some help on the legal stuff? if so i would recommend starting with making a trail of several related problems. if he has ADHD then starting adding to the list. if he has a doctor that can provide as many different presenting conditions, or diagnosis, it will certainly benefit if and when you get legal help.
if you choose to attack the court issues on your own it would make sense for him to, after he has the multiple diagnosis, have his doctor or anyone he's working with, write letters on his behalf explaining his conditions and how they have directly affected his situation with the court system. at some point he should be able to take them, along with his own letter, to the judge and ask him for leniency. it would be important to have a clear definition of the problem and a course for treatment and potential recovery. he will need to face this stuff and any judge will respect his situation if he is working toward managing the problems.
you have touched on a few things that he has aside from ADHD. with any mental/emotional stuff you could be looking at; generalized anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, conduct disorder, oppositonal defiance disorder, dyselxia, obsessive compulsive disorder, sociaphobia, and/or various other conditions. if he can somehow look back on his life and come up with evidence of any conditions he will be able to prove they are indeed a factor. it would be good to have some past medical records to at least touch on something, then a current doctor can tie them together. nimh.nih.gov is a good website for research.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm?textSize=S&Out put=Print#accomp
hope this helps.......
unbreakable38487.7074189815http://www.add.org/articles/cjaddld.html
http://www.add.org/articles/ADHDCo-MorbidityWhatsUndertheTip oftheIceberg.html
http://www.help4adhd.org/en/systems/public
this one may answer your question.
http://www.chadd.org/findchap.cfm?cat_id=7&subcat_id=36
unbreakable38487.7353240741I posted a topic on the 12th which I received many replies from. Thank you. However, my question concerned any knowledge of legal advice specifically for adults with ADHD or whether or not the law takes this into consideration. Since my brother has ADHD and, therefore, major problems with impulse control plus other other psych problems shouldn't he receive some sort of a break in the courts??? Maybe not since I also think he really needs to "own" his condition and deal with it head on. Easy for me to say since I don't suffer from this condition.
I will try to see if there's any local or state advocacy groups for adults with ADHD. Does anyone know of any in Massachusetts?
Thanks!
Kdegs
I know the Hallowell Clinic provides legal reports and expert witness testimony. Ed Hallowell is the guy who wrote the ...To Distraction series of books on ADD. They're in Sudbury, MA.The Book ADHD and the Criminal Justice System : Spinning out of Control is great too. You might want to think about sending a copy to his probation officer is he has one.
By the way I am also in MA.