- Quickdraw McLaw
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In February of this year, the Supreme Court made it a mandatory requirement that all Nevada attorneys take a CLE on substance abuse, addictive disorders, or mental health problems at least once every three years. In support of that noble cause, today’s post is dedicated to Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers. If you’re not familiar with it, here is a brief description:
Confidential help from a fellow lawyer is a phone call awayToll Free: 866-828-0022 or 775-322-2154 Coe Swobe, LCL CoordinatorIf you, or any lawyer in Nevada, are in need of confidential assistance with an alcohol, drug, depression, stress or gambling problem, help is readily available through the LCL Hotline.When calling, leave your first name and telephone number. A fellow lawyer, who has also had problems, will call you back. You’ll be listened to with an understanding heart rather than scorn, judgment and condemnation. You can talk frankly. The person returning your call is solving problems just like yours, and is living happily and usefully doing so.
You can get more information here. The most important thing to know about it is that it is strictly confidential. Your calls are not reported to the state bar or courts and can’t be used against you in any related proceeding. It’s just a way for you to get help for yourself or a colleague. If you are struggling with any of the problems listed above, please don’t hesitate to call. We care about the health of our community and want you to know help is available.
I'm a twenty-year lawyer, the child of an alcoholic, and I've seen firsthand the insidious effects of alcoholism on lawyers.
I've often pondered the reason why so many in our profession struggle with alcohol.
The reasons are many, and complicated.
First, I suppose that the kind of person drawn to law school, and a career in law, tends to be driven, competitive, and hard on himself. AA meeting rooms are full of such personality types, from all walks of life.
Second, the pressures of the work are very taxing, and come from all directions. Clients expect too much, our opponents can be mercenary, and we are tasked with husbanding the fortunes, and sometimes the lives, of other people. The weighty burden of client's trust can stagger the best of us. These pressures are magnified by the impulse to earn, to acquire, to pay the oppressive mortgage on the house you couldn't quite afford, but wanted.
I can say with confidence that some of our brightest, most admired, most accomplished colleagues are in AA, who will discard their anonymity to offer help, to be a friend. I am proud to know them.
I certainly agree with 9:44's last paragraph. But I doubt the incidence of alcoholism is any higher among lawyers than among the general population. The real difference is that when lawyers screw up as the result of alcoholism, the stakes are higher than they are for most.
LCL has helped many an attorney get back on the right track. However, the alcoholic attorneys who are able to truly turn their lives around, regain their practices, and re-establish their families do so through a commitment to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Imagine having a black and white true believer AA thumper like this commenter on your disciplinary board or as a justice on the NSC ruling on yourlicense. It might not just be annoying, i have seen it be fatal…. on this blog and others Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers gets a lot of positive references. It may or can be a good thing….but…in my experience it is profoundly twelve step based….LCL makes little effort to hide that. When you get into the research literature, there seems to be some significant health risks to twelve step groups despite the general consensus seeming to be how wonderful they are. Their efficacy is hardly borne out in peer reviewed studies…. take the link below with a grain of salt, but put that same salt on LCL and twelve step groups…. http://aorange1.tripod.com
A tripod site? Was the geocities one already taken?
Worthy posts:
•According to an often cited Johns Hopkins University study of more than 100 occupations, researchers found that lawyers lead the nation with the highest incidence of depression.
•In 1996, lawyers overtook dentists as the profession with the highest rate of suicide.
•The ABA estimates that 15-20% of all U.S. lawyers suffer from alcoholism or substance abuse; other studies run it at 25%. The rate in the general population is generally estimated to be around 5-10% of males an 3-5% of females according to NIH.
•70% of lawyers responding to a California Lawyers magazine poll said they would change careers if the opportunity arose.
LCL helps not only the addicted but lawyers going through any number of issues. There are any number of reasons that attorneys are more prone to alcoholism, substance abuse and mental illness, from the perfection and social stresses of the profession, to the adversarial nature of what many of us do, to the stresses of holding large chunks of peoples' lives in the balance to the infalliability/invinceability which many attorneys believe that they have.
Great posts.
On another subject, funny how there was a Legal Elite topic here recently and that it was ripped, yet an actual legitimate lawyers rating service, Super Lawyers, just came out and there is no designated Super Lawyers topic here.
4:01 I saw the Super Lawyers list. Nevada did well in the Mountain States top 10.
It looks like Superlawyers has the exact same people in it.
@ 4:01 — I hate to burst your self-centered bubble, but Super Lawyers is far from a legitimate rating service. It is simply another version of Who's Who.
It is refreshing to see some posts of substance here. Please let the "list obsession" rest. I believe it is extremely important for lawyers to obtain help for depression, substance abuse and general counseling. 9:44 stated very clearly that there are enormous pressures and LCL should be applauded.