Shownotes
Attorney Mark Astor reveals how mental health law and the Florida Marchman Act save lives. Learn how taking responsibility, overcoming setbacks, and finding purpose can transform both families and communities. This episode highlights addiction recovery, mental health intervention, and the power of resilience.
Mark shares his personal story of failure, growth, and reinvention, plus his unique work helping families nationwide through Florida’s Marchman Act. If you or a loved one struggles with mental illness or addiction, this conversation offers both hope and actionable insight.
Timestamps
(00:00) Welcome to the Saddle Up Segment
(01:10) Highlight from Tuesday’s full episode with Mark Astor
(03:45) Comparing mental illness to other health challenges
(06:12) Mark Astor’s turning point: failure, responsibility, and growth
(09:24) Discovering purpose in helping families with addiction and mental health
(12:36) The Florida Marchman Act: a powerful legal tool for families
(16:52) Lessons for resilience, self-leadership, and service
Key Takeaways
- Mental illness and addiction impact entire families, not just individuals.
- Self-care and responsibility are essential to transformation.
- The Marchman Act empowers families to intervene when a loved one refuses treatment.
- Failure can be a launching pad for growth and purpose.
- Taking responsibility for your own life opens the door to serving others.
Guest Bio
Mark Astor, Esq. is the only attorney in the United States who exclusively handles mental health and addiction-related legal cases. Based in Florida, he helps families nationwide navigate the Marchman Act and find pathways to recovery. His work combines legal strategy with compassion, giving families hope in their darkest moments.
Transcripts
Welcome to this week's Saddle Up segment.
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I am Lisa Koski, and I'm glad that
you're here because on this saddle
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up segment, I'm gonna just highlight
something from Tuesday's podcast.
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It was.
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So helpful if you know or love
someone who has mental health
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issues or addiction issues.
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Mark Astor is the only attorney
in the United States who deals
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with these cases and he deals
with them in a really unique way.
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He is in Florida, however.
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He is working to help people
all over the United States.
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Um.
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And I'm just gonna say, if you have
someone you love and care about and
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you are at your wits end, um, go
back and listen to that podcast.
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Reach out to Mark and find out how
Florida can capture this person and
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really give them the help that they need.
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So it was such a great episode,
and we, we went on tangents.
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Um.
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I don't always like to talk about the
breast cancer thing, but it popped up
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again and it was interesting because he
brought up the correlation between, like,
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he used the example of how my family felt
as I was going through breast cancer.
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I actually didn't even really
think about this, but, and think
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about if you have a loved one.
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I, of course, was willing to get
treatment, but think about if you
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had a loved one who had a sickness
and they were unwilling to get help.
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He said it is the exact same thing.
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For those families who have someone who
have mental illness or addiction issues,
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um, you know, the family wants 'em to
get help so bad and they're refusing.
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And so we put it on kind of an even
playing field and help me to see that
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a little bit, a little bit better.
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And then this is, so this week I
took a little clip 'cause it was
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a longer episode, it was about 45
minutes, and I don't usually do them
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that long, but I grabbed a clip.
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That I really loved because if y'all
know me, you know how I love to talk
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about taking responsibility for, um,
taking responsibility for your life.
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And attorneys are no, no different.
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And he tells, he shares his story.
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Now, I didn't.
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Put everything in there about, I mean,
he failed the bar a couple times.
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He was trying to figure out
what the heck am I gonna do?
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And he was struggling.
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And then he said he took responsibility
and pulled up his big boy pants.
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And so that's the clip
that I've got here because.
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That's another lesson embedded in this.
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I mean, it's here to help you
through mental illness, but it a,
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also speaks highly of how he made
the decision to do the work that he
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does and how he took responsibility.
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He knew people that needed help.
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Well just listen on, and here,
it's not a long clip, but it's
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really impactful and good.
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Speaker: meanwhile friends and
family were telling me, you're
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supposed to be in Florida, you're
not listening to the universe.
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Yeah.
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Open up your ears.
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Um, and then I met somebody that basically
changed the, the, the path of my life.
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So I met a, I met.
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I met a guy, his name is Arjan Robbins.
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Arjan Robbins runs a company in Miami
called How to Manage a small law Firm,
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and they teach lawyers the business
side of being a lawyer, which is not
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something they teach you in any law
school anywhere in the country, but at
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the very core of how to manage, they are
a personal growth company for lawyers.
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Can you believe that postal growth
for lawyers and God, we need it.
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And I, I, I, I saw him present
to a group of lawyers about
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being an entrepreneurial lawyer.
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And after seeing him speak,
I begged him for a job.
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'cause I didn't have, I wasn't, I
was unemployed when I came back.
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Yeah.
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Um.
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I spent a year working for him.
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Learned about the business side of
being an entrepreneurial lawyer,
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but it was also a year for me to
really grow up and put my big boy
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pants on and take a hundred percent
responsibility for my crappy life, right?
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That was why I had no money in the
bank, nothing going on professionally,
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nothing going on personally, and
I took responsibility for it.
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And when I really thought about it, I
realized I had close family members and
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friends who had issues primarily related
to drugs, but some with mental illness.
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And I said, okay.
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That's who I'm going to help.
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And I didn't know how
I was going to do it.
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I didn't have a business plan, but
I sat myself down in the library
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and just wrote a, compiled, an
Excel spreadsheet of all the people
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that I had ever had contact with.
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And I just started, you know, smiling and
dialing and making contact with people.
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Um, I had read about the Marchman Act,
which is a statute unique to Florida,
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which we still use to this day in the
office, which is designed to give a
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family the ability, the legal authority.
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To place somebody into treatment
for chunks of 90 days where there
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is a primary substance use disorder.
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Now, at the time there were
only two lawyers who were,
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who were using the March Act.
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One was south of me and he sued
nursing homes and one was north
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of me and he was a family lawyer
and the guy south didn't go north.
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The guy north didn't go south.
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They kept it quiet,
they made lots of money.
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And then I came along and spoiled
the party for them and started
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talking about it on social media.
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Speaker 4: Thanks for joining me on
this ride through the saddle up segment.
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If you liked what you heard, go
back to Tuesday's episode and
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listen to the whole podcast.