Spotlight on Maya Prabhu (NY, ’02)

Can you share a memory from your time at Davis Polk?

I have many fond memories of my time at Davis Polk, including conversations with Karen Wagner about trial strategy and the artwork around the firm; brief writing with Michael Flynn, who was so patient with me; and Bob Wise’s skillful depositions on a matter that took us to Cleveland.

One of my most vivid memories is walking through a correctional facility in upstate New York (on a pro bono case) trying to identify inmates with serious mental illness with Candy Lawson, Brian Lasky, Nancy Ludmerer and Jimmy Benkard. The juxtaposition of the elegant Jimmy Benkard and the maximum-security setting was striking!

Are there any skills or lessons from your time at Davis Polk that are helpful to you in your current work?

Davis Polk instilled in me the importance of attention to detail and commitment to excellence, all while being civil both to your colleagues and legal opponents. It also made me aware of the importance of teamwork and the sequencing of tasks so there isn’t a mad scramble before a deadline. My time at Davis Polk has also been very compelling to adjudicators when I testify as a forensic psychiatric expert and to my current legal organization clients who appreciate that I’ve had practice experience.

After leaving Davis Polk but before starting your medical residency, you were a deputy counsel to the Independent Inquiry Committee investigating the UN Oil-for-Food Programme. Tell us about your work for the committee.

That was an extraordinary opportunity which would not have been afforded to me if not for my litigation experience at Davis Polk. The UN Security Council started the Oil-for-Food Programme in 1996 to allow Iraq to sell enough oil to pay for food and humanitarian supplies for its citizens, who were suffering under UN sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War. Within a few years, there were concerns that Saddam Hussein was exploiting the program, earning billions through kickbacks and illegal oil smuggling. In 2004, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan established a committee headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to investigate. I was one of 70 lawyers, investigators, prosecutors and accountants supporting that investigation. It was heady stuff but also discouraging when the scope of the fraud became clear.

After the Independent Inquiry Committee, you began a psychiatry residency at the Yale School of Medicine. Did you always intend to practice in psychiatry? What prompted your interest in pursuing this path?  

I didn’t have a grand plan. It was while working closely with the forensic psychiatry experts on a Davis Polk pro bono case that I decided my skill set and temperament were a better fit for clinical work than legal work. Psychiatry was a natural landing. It’s the field that has the most overlap with legal issues and regulation – it’s also the most fascinating and tragic. Without mental health, there is no health. It’s very important to me that I work not only with patients but the people who work with them. I do a lot of consulting work with lawyers, especially death penalty lawyers, immigration lawyers and public defenders, about the psychological impact of lawyering (e.g., vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, burnout). Recently I’ve been asked to do more training of young attorneys in conducting trauma-sensitive interviews.

You teach at both Yale Law School and Yale School of Medicine. Tell us about your work and research at those institutions.

My primary appointment is at Yale School of Medicine, in the Division of Law and Psychiatry. I’m the deputy program director for the forensic psychiatry fellowship which trains psychiatrists to be forensic experts. I do some additional teaching of residents and medical students. I co-teach the International Refugees Assistance Project law clinic at Yale Law School; over the years, I’ve developed expertise in conducting psychiatric evaluations of persons seeking asylum and refugee status. Additionally, this past year, I’ve become faculty at the School of the Environment and co-teach a new course on climate migration. In recent years, my research and scholarship has focused on the mental health impacts of climate change, climate migration, forensic psychiatry and other issues at the nexus of international law and health.

You are also currently the Chief Forensic Psychiatrist for the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Tell us about this work.

While I am full-time academic faculty at Yale, my “clinical duties” are as a forensic psychiatry consultant to The Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. My team is primarily responsible for conducting violence risk assessments of individuals who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity and who are under the jurisdiction of the Connecticut Psychiatric Security Review Board. I testify regularly before the board and in superior court, and I consult to the psychiatric hospital teams to develop safe discharge plans for patients as they move from the maximum-security setting into less restrictive settings and the community. Some of the cases receive intense political and media scrutiny, and victims will often be present at the hearings. At the same time, the law requires that patients be held in the least restrictive setting that is clinically appropriate. One must be mindful of all those considerations while striving to provide an objective assessment to adjudicators who make the ultimate determinations. My colleagues are very thoughtful, and while the content of the work can be grim, I enjoy it very much.