Lawyers' mental well-being to be included in help program
The Star-Ledger, Kate Coscarelli, February 27, 2003

 

The confidential system set up to help the state's lawyers get treatment for addictions is expanding its services to cover mental health issues.

And, the New Jersey Lawyers Assistance Program is extending its client base to include judges.

The program can now reach out to attorneys and all full-time members of the judiciary with not just gambling and substance abuse problems, but also mental health issues, officials said yesterday.

"This is just the recognition of the frailties of our profession and the fact that we are willing to step up to the plate to cure it," said Richard Badolato, president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, which provides funding and administrative support to the program.

The state Supreme Court, which sanctions the program, earlier this month changed a court rule to expandits services. However, officials are still working on the final changes to thegroup's mandate.

Yesterday, workers were drafting new program literature, which will be printed later this week and distributed with registration materials to all of the state's lawyers.

The new brochures will proudly say: "Not just for alcohol and drugs any longer," said Bill Kane, director of the program.The group does not release the number of people it serves each year.

This change to a more widespread approach brings New Jersey in line with a national trend to extend help to a larger number of people in the legal community. Studies show that lawyers - from those in law school to those on the bench - tend to have addiction and mental problems at higher rates than the general public and even some other professionals.

Across America, about 10 percent of people have an addiction problem. The number of lawyers who experience addiction problems is more like 15 percent, said John W. Clark Jr., a Dallas lawyer who chairs the American Bar Association's Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs.

"There are strains and stresses in the profession.... There are long hours and there are economic pressures, and there are expectations that are sometimes frustrating and never met. An easy way to get relief is to get a bottle of whiskey or some pills or get some drugs and that solves your problem temporarily, and soon enough you are addicted," said Clark.

To complicate the issue, lawyers are especially hard to treat for chemical dependency and mental health issues, said Tim Sweeney, director of the recovering attorneys program at HealthCare Connection of Tampa.

"They would threaten lawsuits and they would make other patients cry," said Sweeney, a lawyer by training who was addicted to cocaine and alcohol.

Lawyers are also good at hiding their problems and are trained to argue.

"Day one in law school, you are encouraged to argue with the professor and that doesn't really work in treatment. So much of recovering is a faith-based thing, you can't put your hands on recovery. A lawyer comes in and wants you to prove it, with evidence."

The concept of formal lawyers' assistance programs is relatively new, most only getting started in the late 1980s. While most states have some kind of program, there is little uniformity in how services are administered. New Jersey's program is considered a leader by many in the field.