She previously worked as an independent consultant focusing on legal and policy issues related to community-based care for older adults with mental disabilities, fair housing law, and international mental health law. She has also served as a court-appointed criminal appellate defense attorney specializing in issues of forensic mental health law. She has been a staff attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C.,]{style="font-family:[ a project manager at the AARP Foundation, and a member of an International Commission of Jurists mission to study the rights of psychiatric patients in Japan.