St. Petersburg Mental Health & Addiction Law Firm
Legal help for St. Petersburg families facing a loved one's mental health or substance use crisis.
Who we help in St. Petersburg
Astor Simovitch Law handles the legal side of mental health and substance use crises for families across St. Petersburg and Pinellas 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 Pinellas County 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 St. Petersburg 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 St. Petersburg families call us
We are not a St. Petersburg firm with a St. Petersburg storefront, and we will not pretend to be. Astor Simovitch Law is a Florida firm that handles these cases in Pinellas 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 Pinellas County courtrooms before and can tell them honestly what to expect.
Marchman Act and guardianship matters in St. Petersburg run through the Sixth Judicial Circuit, the state court that covers all of Pinellas County. 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 Pinellas County 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 USF St. Petersburg or Eckerd College. Others are the adult children of a parent in the Old Northeast or Gulfport, or guardians planning for a young adult aging out of Pinellas County Schools.
Where cases are heard in Pinellas County
In Pinellas County, Baker Act, Marchman Act, and guardianship matters all run through the Probate, Guardianship, and Mental Health division of the Sixth Judicial Circuit.
Petitions are heard at the St. Petersburg Judicial Building on First Avenue North and at the Pinellas County Justice Center in Clearwater, where circuit judges and general magistrates hear 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 Pinellas County's crisis system, an emergency room visit, a Baker Act hold at one of the area's receiving facilities, such as Personal Enrichment Through Mental Health Services, or a treatment program that did not hold the first time.
Most families are trying to piece all of that together on their own, without anyone explaining how the parts connect or what the law can actually do next. That is usually the moment they call us.
We know how the legal side fits with the medical and treatment side, where the Marchman Act and guardianship come in, and where families tend to get stuck.
Meet Mark Astor
These are personal problems with a legal solution, not the other way around.
Mark Astor
