This session is recorded on one audio reel. Advertised speakers for this session included U.S. Congressman and former Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo; Fred Cohen, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, SUNY School of Criminal Justice; and Sheila Rush, director, Community Law Offices, New York City. However, only Cohen's recording is present. Rush appears as a speaker in a different session, "The Rich, the Poor, and the Middle," in which Cohen is also present.

The recording contains the introduction to the session on the future of law and the remarks of the first speaker. Attorney Martin Gallent introduces the topic of the discussion and summarizes important questions raised by the symposium. At 6:47, State University of New York Professor of Law and Criminal Justice Fred Cohen delivers his remarks, in which he discusses the ways in which civil committment laws function in a similar way to criminal law, the criminalization and institutionalization of mental illness and drug addiction, and advocates for incarceration of mentally ill or drug addicted patient only as a last resort and the abolishment of the mental institution system.