Jacksonville Mental Health & Addiction Law Firm
Legal help for Jacksonville families in the middle of a loved one's mental health or substance use crisis.
Most families who call us have been carrying this a long time before they ever pick up the phone. We help you use Florida law to step in when someone you love can no longer make safe decisions on their own, and we stay with you for everything that comes after.
Who we help in Jacksonville
Astor Simovitch Law takes on the legal side of mental health and substance use crises for families throughout Jacksonville and Duval County. That could be a Marchman Act case to get a loved one into court-ordered assessment and treatment, a Baker Act matter, a guardianship, or a plan that shields a family member who can no longer look out for themselves.
We help Jacksonville families over the phone and face to face. Nearly all of it begins the same way, with one honest talk about exactly where you 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 that hits close to home, you have found the right firm. And if your situation does not line up neatly with any of it, call anyway. These cases almost never fit a template.
How we help Jacksonville 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 Jacksonville families call us
We are not a Jacksonville firm with a Jacksonville storefront, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Astor Simovitch Law is a Florida firm that handles these cases in Duval County, in front of the courts that actually hear them.
The families who call us are not shopping for the nearest office. They want someone who has already stood in these Duval County courtrooms and can tell them, honestly, what to expect.
Marchman Act and guardianship matters in Jacksonville move through the Fourth Judicial Circuit, the state court that covers all of Duval County. Knowing how a particular court and its judges tend to handle these cases counts for far more than a nearby address. That is what we bring to your case.
Most of the work happens by phone, by video, and through court filings, so where you sit in Duval County does not change how we work with you.
And we will give you the truth about your situation before you spend a dollar. There are cases we take on, and cases we would tell you to walk away from, and you deserve to know which one yours is.
The neighborhoods we cover
Some of the families who call us are parents of a student at the University of North Florida or Jacksonville University. Others are the adult children of a parent in San Marco or Mandarin, or guardians planning for a young adult aging out of Duval County Public Schools.
Where cases are heard in Duval County
In Duval County, Baker Act, Marchman Act, and guardianship petitions all move through the Fourth Judicial Circuit. They are filed with the court's Mental Health Department downtown at the Duval County Courthouse on West Adams Street.
A small group of judges and magistrates hear mental health and substance use cases.
We are in front of that court regularly. Before you file anything, we can tell you how it tends to move and what to expect once you are standing in it.
The local system you are dealing with
By the time families reach us, many have already been through Duval County's crisis system, an emergency room visit, a Baker Act hold at one of the area's receiving facilities, such as UF Health Jacksonville, or a treatment program that did not hold the first time around. We know how the legal side ties into that system, and we help you work with it instead of against it.
You have already burned enough energy getting bounced between the ER, the facility, and the next program. Let us take the legal piece, 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 in motion
Jacksonville questions we hear a lot
No, and we say so plainly. We are a Florida firm that serves Duval County by phone, by video, and in the local courts when a case needs a hearing. For most families, the whole thing happens without ever sitting in a waiting room.
All of Duval County, including Riverside, Avondale, San Marco, Mandarin, Southside, Arlington, Jacksonville Beach, and Springfield, plus the rest of Florida. Cases here run through the Fourth 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 figure out which one fits.
Yes. Plenty of the families we work with live in another state while a loved one is in Jacksonville, or the other way around. Because most of the process runs 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 going on, what your options are, and whether this is something we can help with. There is no pressure to file anything that day.
