The principle of informed consent has received considerable attention in the professional literature of medicine and psychiatry (Faden & Beauchamp, 1994; Martin & Glancy, 1994; Pope & Vasquez, 1991; Rosner & Weinstock, 1990). This attention has focused primarily on consent to surgical and pharmacological intervention. Social workers have joined this intellectual exchange in advocating for informed consent with medical patients on issues such as sterilization for women (Shapiro-Steinberg & Neamatalla, 1979), vasectomy counseling (Smith, 1981), the right to refuse psychiatric treatment (Almeleh & Lurie, 1984), and treatment for people with end-stage renal disease (Macklin, 1984). The art of social work practice is in helping clients develop the potential for choice (Perry, 1981); thus, social workers often have a critical role to play in ensuring that patients have accurate information about their medical condition and treatment alternatives. Although protecting the rights and autonomy of individuals who are seeking treatment from the medical profession is a worthy goal, social workers have devoted less time to considering the complexities of informed consent in their own practices. The client's right to self-determination is a key tenet of social work practice, and informed consent is one way to codify the principle of self-determination in day-to-day practice (Hepworth & Larsen, 1993). Clients have a right to information about the type of social work treatment they are about to receive and the efficacy of that treatment in addressing their particular problem. Social workers have both a legal and an ethical responsibility to provide this information (Canadian Association of Social Workers, 1993; NASW, 1996; Reamer, 1987). Further, social workers have maintained that the interests of individuals must be weighed in relation to the needs of the larger community, and thus the dual role of social workers - individual intervention and social justice - has received considerable attention in the practice literature (Hepworth & Larsen, 1993; Kilpatrick & Holland, 1995). In this dual role, social workers often work in situations in which they have a responsibility to consider the interests not only of the client, but also of significant others in the community. This article focuses on the ethical dilemmas surrounding informed consent in court-mandated practice (for example, including court-ordered assessments with clients facing charges in the criminal justice system, custody and access assessments for divorcing parents, and parenting assessments in child welfare). When assessments are being conducted in any of these areas of practice, social workers are often placed in the role of working for the greater good - for example, balancing the safety of a child with the individual rights of one or both parents, or balancing the risk to society of freeing someone charged with a criminal offense with the rights of the accused. Practice norms would command that in these situations social workers give clear information about the nature of the assessment and the limits of confidentiality in these cases. Social workers are likely to assume that by providing information about the limits to confidentiality, they have met their ethical requirements of informed consent. However, several factors are neglected in this approach. There are three key obstacles to informed consent for court-mandated clients. The first is that the risks and benefits of an assessment for an individual or family cannot always be anticipated in advance. As a result, social workers are often unable to provide full and informed consent. The second issue is the role of the power imbalance between the worker and the client resulting in client vulnerability and the undermining of freedom to consent. Can clients in court-mandated practice grant free consent? The final element is the therapeutic alliance that develops between the social worker and the client during the assessment process. …