James L Cavanaugh, MD

Bio

James L Cavanaugh, MD, is adjunct professor of psychiatry at Northwestern Feinberg school of medicine and professor of psychiatry at Rush Medical College. He is the former chairman of the board of the Isaac Ray Center Inc. and senior associate of Cavanaugh Associates in Chicago. He has specialized for many years in the application of behavioral sciences to a broad spectrum of both criminal and civil legal cases. Noteworthy cases have included Illinois vs. John Wayne Gacy, US vs. John Warnock Hinckley, and Illinois vs. Marlyn Lemak. He received his undergraduate degree at Williams College, his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and was trained in general psychiatry at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Maudsley Hospital, University of London.

After a general internship at Cook County Hospital and two years as a Lieut. Cmdr. in the US Navy Medical Corps, he joined Rush University Medical Center in 1973. In 2017, he endowed through the former Isaac Ray Center Corporation, Northwestern Medicine to create the Isaac Ray Research Program in behavioral sciences and the law and the Cavanaugh Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship. He is a past president of the Illinois Psychiatric Society, a past secretary of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law and editor emeritus, Behavioral Sciences and the Law (John Wiley and Sons). For over 30 years he was a psychiatric consultant to the US Secret Service both in the Chicago field office and in Washington DC headquarters. He has served as a psychiatric consultant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US postal inspection service, the Illinois State Police, and the Chicago Police Department. He specializes in threat assessment. His teaching in the Northwestern forensic fellowship program focuses on medical legal analysis of civil cases involving behavioral science issues. Report writing, deposition and trial testimony dynamics are emphasized.