Dr. Judith Edersheim is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a senior consultant to the Law and Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Co-Director of the MGH Center for Law, Brain and Behavior (clbb.org).
Dr. Edersheim graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and attended law school at Harvard, where she graduated cum laude. She was a law clerk to the Honorable Robert W. Sweet, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, and practiced law at the firm of Hill and Barlow before returning to Harvard Medical School. She was an intern at the Mount Auburn Hospital and received her clinical psychiatry training at the Cambridge Hospital adult psychiatry residency program. Dr. Edersheim completed a fellowship in the Law and Psychiatry service at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is a member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is licensed to practice medicine in Massachusetts and is Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, with added qualifications in Forensic Psychiatry.
Dr. Edersheim has performed a wide variety of forensic evaluations in both civil and criminal settings, including evaluations of competencies to stand trial, testamentary capacity, the capacity to make medical decisions, fitness for duty, the assessment of emotional damages, diminished capacity and criminal responsibility. She is a principal lecturer in the forensic psychiatry fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and teaches forensic psychiatry to adult psychiatry residents at Massachusetts and McLean Hospitals. Dr. Edersheim teaches extensively in the legal arena, including lectures sponsored by the Boston Bar Association, the Judicial Institute, and the Mental Health Legal Advisor’s Committee. She had been a member of several nonprofit boards, including the Mental Health Legal Advisor’s Committee and the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University. Dr. Edersheim continues to pursue her longstanding interest in the translation of psychiatric and neurologic behavior into legal settings. She has published articles on a wide variety of topics in psychiatry, neuroscience and the law.