Skip Simpson, B.A., J.D. With a legal background ranging from duties as a U.S. Air Force Courts Martial Judge lawyer to services as Texas' top drug traffic prosecutor, Skip Simpson has created a private law practice that has covered a wide range of intriguing matters both civil and criminal. Now, he has limited his practice primarily to psychiatric and psychological malpractice.
Nationally recognized for his expertise in suicide and repressed me cases, Mr. Simpson and his unique law firm are featured in C.C. Risenhoover=s book The Suicide Lawyers: Exposing Lethal Secrets. The author explains that, Aunlike psychiatrists, Mr. Simpson has to look at suicide from every possible angle in preparing a case, and he has to make his findings easily understandable to a jury...after reading this book the reader will not be one of the many Americans who, after the suicide of a loved one or friend, says, AIf I had only known...@
Profiled in The Wall Street Journal in 1997 for his pioneering work in suicide litigation, Simpson has been most active in cases where psychiatry and mental health questions have arisen. But his personal background reveals a varied career with stints as a military prosecutor, defense lawyer, and general courts martial judge, a state and federal criminal prosecutor, an in-house corporate lawyer, and a privately practicing civil trial lawyer.
Officially named Texas's top narcotics prosecutor in 1985, he launched his legal career from a position in the U.S. Air Force. After earning his law degree in 1974 - fives years after joining the Air Force, Simpson became a military prosecutor and handled numerous cases of alleged recruit abuse by training instructors at Lackland Air Base. Later he served as a military defense counsel and handled numerous insanity cases, duty that stimulated his curiosity in the mental health legal arena.
Although Simpson left active duty in 1981 to join the Dallas County District Attorney's office, the U.S. Justice and Defense departments teamed up one year later to recall Major Simpson for service as a special prosecutor investigating public integrity issues in the military.
Moving to the U.S. Attorney's office in Dallas, he won recognition in 1985 from the Texas Narcotics Officers Association and Texas businessman H. Ross Perot as the state's most effective narcotics prosecutor that year. He left the U.S. Attorney's office to accept a position as a trial lawyer for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in 1985. He launched his own law firm in 1987.
Following his interest in psychology, he's become one of the nation's ranking experts on the legal aspects of psychological problems, handling numerous cases that deal with everything from memory repression and multiple personalities to satanic cult worship and suicide. Simpson settled the first case ever brought by a sexual abuse "retractor" against her therapist based on repressed memory issues.
In recognition as a leader in the mental health field, Mr. Simpson in 2003 was honored as a Research Associate of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law, Dept. of Psychiatry, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. On January 1, 2004 he was appointed as a Clinical Instructor at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. In 2006 he was promoted to Adjunct Associate Professor. In these roles, Mr. Simpson teaches medical residents subjects focusing on psychiatry and the law. In 2005 Mr. Simpson was named to the board of directors for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Collin County where he served for a one year term. Mr. Simpson was part of a American Association of Suicidology Task Force whose efforts produced a project that was published in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, Vol 42, Issue 3, pp. 292-304 APreventing Suicide through Improved Training in Suicide Risk Assessment and Care: An American Association of Suicidology Task Force Report Addressing Serious Gaps in U.S. In 2012 Mr. Simpson authored a chapter “A Lawyer’s Perspective on Forensic Mental Health Experts” for in Reid WH (in press) Developing a Forensic Practice: Operations and Ethics for Experts (working title). New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis).
