Student Suicide

Boston Student Suicide Lawsuit Attorney

Approximately, 1,100 college and university students commit suicide each year. These suicides are often preventable. Our firm provides compassionate representation to parents whose college student has lost his or her life through suicide. We understand parents are experiencing deep feelings of sadness and anger. Our firm strives to honor the life of your child while taking legal action against the liable college, university and responsible administrators or staff. The risk of college student suicide is well known to these institutions. Indeed, many academic institutions have adopted suicide prevention policies and initiatives to address the risk of student suicide.

Contact a lawyer from Heinlein & Beeler, P.C. if you have legal concerns regarding student suicide. As a leading cause of death to college students, this is an issue that must be addressed.

A Look at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UI) mandates counseling assessment sessions when a student exhibits suicidal threats, suicidal attempts, or a preoccupation with suicide. These mandatory counseling sessions have dramatically decreased the suicide rate at UI. Indeed, the University of Illinois suicide prevention program has been 100% effective in preventing the suicide of students in the program. Colleges and universities have legal and ethical duties to college students who exhibit signs or symptoms of depression, mental health illness, or suicidal tendencies and they can, depending on the applicable law, be held liable for failing to meet these duties.

Academic administrators such as deans, residence hall advisors, and professors can also, in appropriate cases, be held responsible for failing to respond appropriately to students who exhibit signs of mental health distress or depression. Some signs include:

• Excessive alcohol and/or drug use
• Missing class
• Poor grades
• Weight loss
• Antisocial behavior
• A history of being sexually assaulted or raped
• Suicidal tendencies, thoughts, statements or actions

Our firm helps parents and guardians through the legal components of dealing with a student suicide. Contact us to learn more.