Security claim (Pincus et al., 1991; Pryor, 1997). The filing of a claim for disability under one system does not preclude the filing of a claim under another (Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp., 1999), as these systems differ in scope and goals. For the psychologist evaluating a plaintiff in an ADA-related lawsuit, these records may provide expert evaluations conducted in those contexts. In some cases, it may be possible to obtain testing from the earlier evaluations that provide excellent baseline data to determine the later impact of allegedly discriminatory activities on the part of the employer. Other records of interest include information gathered from sources reflecting a plaintiffs criminal history, including prison, probation, or parole records. In workers with these histories, records may provide information concerning the issue of direct threat (see previous text). In some cases, financial records can assist the examiner to determine changes in spending habits fro

Credit card receipts and check registers can provide an empirical basis for reviewing the impact of discriminatory actions (Greenburg, 2000). In addition, it is always critical to review legally related documents. At minimum, these include a copy of the claim, which lays out the plaintiffs case and its basis. Interrogatories and depositions of the plaintiff, supervisor, coworkers, and other experts are often invaluable sources of crossvalidation and corroboration of information gathered through interview and other sources. Interviews Interviews with the plaintiff should follow the procedures noted for return-to-work evaluations. It is often helpful to have several interviews with the plaintiff to observe behavior on several occasions and under different circumstances. However, in the interviews associated with litigation, it is also critical to focus on issues of damages (GoodmanDelahunty & Foote, 1995). That is, if the worker has

Thus, in addition to the personal, medical, social, vocational, and military history gathered above, it may beappropriateto conduct a mental status examination and other inquiries into the workers current psychological status. Structured interview methods are often useful. For example, the examining psychologist may use the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV (First, Spitzer, Gibbon, & Williams, 1997) or the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality (Pfohl, Blum, & Zimmerman, 1997). These provide not only a systematic method for information gathering, but may have better reliability and validity than standard unstructured interviews and even traditional psychometric testing (Rogers, 1995). A review of the clients life before and after the alleged discrimination is a critical part of the interview. In all damages evaluations, it is cr

g., the plaintiffs condition before the alleged discriminatory activity). This is sometimes difficult because people in litigation are likely to view their life before events that are the focus of litigation as being more problem-free and happier 294 Forensic Evaluation in Americans with Disabilities Act Cases than following the events