After publishing his right to treatment article in 1960 and, through a friend, getting the issue covered in the New York Times,[REF] Birnbaum was contacted by two separate psychiatric patients (Edward Stephens and Kenneth Donaldson) and he took on their cases.
The case of Edward Stephens, a man with schizophrenia being detained for more than 30 years and without treatment, was unsuccessful, though he was later released.