"Since therapists, particularly those who practice outside of California, are unlikely readers of California court decisions, it seems safe to assume that information about the case comes from professional rather than legal sources....

Professional organizations and literature provided [the] respondents with their primary source of information about Tarasoff. The professional contrasts are striking: psychiatrists were more likely to identify professional organizations and literature as their primary source than were psychologists, who in turn were considerably more likely to name these sources than social workers. These figures reflect both Tarasoff's controversial history and the extent to which the case was addressed in the literature of the respective professions. If we combine professional sources, i.e., professional organizations and literature, colleagues and administrators, we see that more than eight out of ten psychiatrists and psychologists and more than seven out often social workers learned most about Tarasoff from professional sources. Very few people, one out of ten or less for every group, learned about the case from lawyers.

Two facts emerge. The first is that the case is extremely well known. The second is that mental health professionals learned about the case from professional organizations and each other, not from lawyers or general circulation newspapers. Given that the message has been delivered by groups which actively intervened in the case and by publications likely to be critical of the decision, we can speculate that [the] respondents may not have a favorable view, or even an accurate understanding, of the decision." [Daniel J. Givelbe, William J. Bowers and Carolyn L. Blitch, "Tarasoff, Myth And Reality: an Empirical Study of Private Law in Action," 1984 Wis. L. Rev. 443, 459-460].