Mental health -- or, more accurately, mental ill-health - is a subject which causes acute discomfort.

It does not, generally, dominate dinner-party conversation - partly because of a widespread ignorance, but also out of a subconscious acknowledgement that all of us are potential sufferers.The legal profession and the criminal justice system are little better than the public in facing and dealing with the implications of mental illness.

As recently as the late 19th century, the mentally ill were considered more criminal than unwell.

And even today there is considerable ignorance over the legal rights of those with mental disabilities.Change is slowly taking place, however.

The Mental Health Act 1983 was a landmark piece of legislation which attempted to lift at least partially the cloak of misunderstanding surrounding the topic.

But, as medical science progresses rapidly, it is now imperative that MPs and lawyers keep pace.Last month, more than 300 lawyers an d mental health care professionals crowded into a London conference to evaluate the 1983 Act after a decade of operation (see [1993] Gazette, 17 November, 10).

The overwhelming consensus was that a considerable overhaul was required, and that the legal profession must become more aware of general mental health issues.That conference was jointly sponsored by the Law Society's mental health sub-committee, which has been chaired for the past four years by Council member and Hartlepool solicitor, David Keating.

In many ways, Mr Keating is the type of lawyer his committee would like to see becoming more aware of mental health issues.

He is the joint senior partner at a seven-partner high street general practice firm.One of Mr Keating's committee's main tasks is to raise awareness amongst the profession.

'We are concerned that lawyers have problems identifying who their client is - the carer or the person with the disability,' he says.

Even he acknowledges that it is not an easily answered question.

In many ways, science has simply served to make life more complicated.

'Now you've got problems where people are going to court for declarations as to whether a mentally defective person can be sterilised, or whether a ventilator can be switched off.

Living wills are also becoming popular for people who have become terminally ill and who want to have a say in their care once they go beyond the point of making that decision themselves.

As medical science becomes more advanced, the number of these twilight areas increases.'The Society's committee is also concerned about criminal law and its approach to the mentally ill.

Although there are provisions within the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 for dealing with potentially mentally ill offenders, and the Home Office has reinforced that with its own set of guidelines, there are still difficulties in practice.Mr Keating maintains that the provisions are 'being skimmed over', and that they need bolstering as 'there is still a lack of awareness on the part of the police and some criminal law practitioners'.

Such ignorance can have dramatic effects, with Mr Keating pointing to 'one or two recent cases before the Court of Appeal where quite clearly the person who was wrongly convicted has had a disability, and the question is whether the authorities followed the guidelines at the time [of arrest]'.On the specific issue of legislation, Mr Keating's committee is leading a campaign lobbying the government to revamp the law.

Early in the new year, in conjunction with the Mental Health Act Commission and the Institute of Psychiatrists, the committee plans to write to the Department of Health minister responsible, John Bowis, reiterating the point that 'it is time for change to reflect current developments in psychiatric care'.Where the current law fails, Mr Keating maintains, is over such issues as consent to treatment and compulsory treatment.

Since 1983 several cases have had to be fought in the courts, as patients have insisted that they do not want a certain form of treatment, while psychiatrists have attempted to compel them to submit to that treatment.Another key issue is community care.

Government measures have almost entirely removed the care of the elderly from the auspices of the health service.

The sort of case that Mr Keating envisages becoming more common is one involving an elderly person whose sole asset is a piece of property worth, say, £30,000.

'Imagine that sonny Jim has always had his eye on inheriting the money but his mother, no longer able to care for hers elf, goes into a home which costs at least £1000 a month.

The son can see that after a couple of years in the home his money will have gone.

So he goes to a solicitor and asks what he can do about it.'For Mr Keating, the most crucial element of the mental health debate is demographic.

Already, he says, some 10% of the population suffers from some form of mental disability.

The percentage of elderly people in the population is constantly increasing in both the over-65 and over-80 age categories.

Indeed, it is this area that is of increasing concern and interest to the mental health committee.

As Mr Keating points out, the ageing population has coincided with an increase in personal wealth.The council house purchase scheme initiated in the 1980s, combined with a general increase in owner occupation, has resulted in far more people growing old in homes they actually own.

That social change has caused practical legal difficulties.For example, the Court of Protection - which Mr Keating describes as originally being designed 'to cope with the dotty dowager rather than someone who has a former council house worth about £30,000 to £40,000' - now has its machinery stretched to the limits.