Miami Mental Health & Addiction Law Firm
Legal help for Miami families facing a loved one's mental health or substance use crisis.
By the time most families call us, they have been carrying this for a long time. We help you use Florida law to step in when someone you love cannot make a safe decision for themselves, and we stay with you through what comes after.
Who we help in Miami
Astor Simovitch Law handles the legal side of mental health and substance use crises for families across Miami and Miami-Dade County. That might be a Marchman Act case to get a loved one into court-ordered assessment and treatment, a Baker Act situation, a guardianship, or planning that protects a family member who can no longer protect themselves.
We work with Miami families in person and by phone. Almost everything we do starts the same way, with one honest conversation about where you actually stand.
- The parent of an adult child whose drinking or drug use has taken over, who cannot get them into treatment on their own.
- The husband, wife, or partner who has carried a loved one's substance use in private for years, and just had the scare that made you look up what the law allows.
- The family of someone in a mental health crisis who will not go voluntarily, or who is trying to make sense of a Baker Act hold that already happened.
- The parent whose teenager was Baker Acted at school, blindsided and unsure what happens next or what it means for their future.
- The parent of an adult son or daughter whose mental illness or substance use has left them unable to make safe decisions, who needs real legal authority now that being their parent stopped being enough at 18.
- The family supporting an adult child with severe mental illness through a disability claim, or an appeal after a denial that felt automatic.
If any of this is close to home, you are in the right place. And if your situation does not fit neatly on a list, call anyway. These cases rarely do.
How we help Miami families
Marchman Act
Baker Act
Mental Health Guardianship
Protective Estate Planning
Psychiatric SSDI
Complex Family Probate
Mark literally wrote the book on Florida's Marchman Act.
Mark Astor wrote Breaking the Cycle for families trying to help a loved one who won't accept it yet, a plain-English guide to the Marchman Act built from hundreds of real Florida cases. Call our office and we'll mail you a physical copy and send the digital version to your inbox right away. Free, and yours to keep.
Why Miami families call us
We are not a Miami firm with a Miami storefront, and we will not pretend to be. Astor Simovitch Law is a Florida firm that handles these cases in Miami-Dade County, in front of the courts that actually hear them.
The families who call us are not looking for the closest office. They are looking for someone who has stood in these Miami-Dade courtrooms before and can tell them honestly what to expect.
Marchman Act and guardianship matters in Miami run through the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, the state court that covers all of Miami-Dade. Knowing how a specific court and its judges tend to handle these cases matters far more than a local address does. That is what we bring to your case.
Most of the process happens by phone, video, and court filing, so where you live in Miami-Dade does not change how we work with you.
And we will tell you the truth about your situation before you spend a dollar. There are cases we take, and cases we would tell you not to file, and you deserve to hear which one yours is.
The neighborhoods we serve
Some of the families who call us are parents of a student at the University of Miami or FIU. Others are the adult children of a parent in Aventura or Kendall, or guardians planning for a young adult aging out of Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
Where these cases are heard in Miami-Dade
In Miami-Dade, Baker Act, Marchman Act, and guardianship matters all run through the Probate and Guardianship Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.
Petitions are filed downtown at the Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center on NW 1st Avenue, where a small group of circuit judges and general magistrates hears mental health and substance use cases.
We are in that division regularly.
Before you file anything, we can tell you how it tends to move and what to expect once you are in front of it.
The local system you are dealing with
By the time families reach us, many have already been through Miami-Dade's crisis system, an emergency room visit, a Baker Act hold at one of the county's receiving facilities, such as Jackson Behavioral Health Hospital, or a treatment program that did not hold the first time.
We know how the legal side connects to that system, and we help you use it instead of fighting it.
You have already spent enough energy being bounced between the ER, the facility, and the next program. Let us handle where the law fits, so you can put your attention back where it belongs, on your loved one.
Meet Mark Astor
These are personal problems with a legal solution, not the other way around. Mark Astor.
Mark Astor
You will feel better once this is moving
Miami questions we hear a lot
No, and we are upfront about that. We are a Florida firm that serves Miami-Dade County by phone, by video, and in the local courts when a case needs a hearing. For most families, the whole process happens without ever sitting in a waiting room.
All of Miami-Dade County, including Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Brickell, Kendall, Doral, Hialeah, Aventura, Miami Beach, and Homestead, along with the rest of Florida. Cases here run through the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.
The Baker Act is for a mental health crisis, when someone may be a danger to themselves or others and needs an involuntary examination. The Marchman Act is for substance use, when the disease has taken away a person's ability to make safe decisions about getting help. Some families need one, some need both, and part of our job is helping you tell which one fits.
Yes. A lot of the families we work with live in another state while a loved one is in Miami, or the reverse. Because most of the process happens by phone and video, distance rarely changes what we can do.
It starts with one honest conversation. Call 561-419-6095 and we will talk through what is happening, what your options are, and whether this is something we can help with. There is no pressure to file anything that day.
