Office of Legal Aid in Detroit. This was one of the first programs in the country providing legal representation to children in abuse and neglect cases, delinquency hearings, and involuntary psychiatric commitment proceedings.

She married Jacob Vinocour, an Israeli engineering student, and they moved to Rochester, New York, where she became Counsel to the Chief Administrative Judge of Family Court and then a Special Assistant District Attorney in what became the Family Violence Bureau, specializing in child abuse and women’s and children’s rights.

 Returning to graduate school after the birth of her three sons, she obtained a doctorate in clinical psychology, specializing in child and adolescent diagnosis and treatment. She became an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Psychiatry Department of the University of Rochester School of Medicine. In addition to seeing patients and supervising and teaching psychology and psychiatry trainees, she performed psychiatric evaluations in civil and criminal court cases where mental health factors were at issue. She was also the Director of the country’s first post-graduate program for the training of Child and Adolescent Forensic Psychologists, as well as the head of the Monroe County Juvenile Mental Health Team, evaluating youth involved in the juvenile justice system. In addition she served as a mental health consultant to a Developmental Disabilities program and a residential facility for court-referred youth.

During her tenure at the Medical School, she was awarded both the Teacher of the Year and Psychologist of the Year commendations. She has spent thirty years in the field of clinical and forensic psychology and has been a frequent lecturer to students, attorneys and judges, mental health professionals, and parents and foster parents.

 She obtained a MFA in Creative Writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is the author of the soon-to-be published “Nobody’s Child: A Tragedy, A Trial, and the History of the Insanity Defense,” short-listed for the J. Anthony Lucas work-in-progress award. She is the co-author of an American Bar Association publication on identifying child abuse, a manual for the Lincoln Land Epilepsy Association on Temporal Lobe Seizure disorders, and co-author of “The Legal System,” a chapter in “Child and Adolescent Mental Health,” eds. D. Kaye, M. Montgomery, and S. Munson. Her current works in progress are “The Art of Parenting: Raising Untroubled Children in a Troubled World” and “The Christmas Chronicles.”

              When she’s not reading or writing, she relaxes by hiking in the mountains, playing piano and flute, and amusing her grandchildren.