Highlights Newsletter Archive
ABA CoLAP
ABA CoLAP
Winter 1995 Issue
Table of Contents
Bar Association Executive Directors Honored
The following Bar Association Executive Directors were nominated by their respective lawyer assistance programs to receive a "Certificate of Appreciation" from the Commission on Impaired Attorneys for outstanding support to the LAP:
- Bruce Hamilton, State Bar of Arizona
- Katherine A. Mazzaferri, The District of Columbia Bar
- Katherine S. Bifaro, Bar Association of Erie County
- Carl V. Nielsen, The Iowa State Bar Association
- Loretta L. Topey, Louisiana State Bar Association
- Paul V. Carlin, Maryland State Bar Association, Inc.
- D. Larkin Chenault, State Bar of Michigan
- Larry Houchins, The Mississippi Bar
- Keith A. Birkes, The Missouri Bar
- William J. Carroll, New York State Bar Association
- L. Thomas Lunsford II, North Carolina State Bar
- Denny L. Ramey, Ohio State Bar Association
- Theodore L. Stellwag, Pennsylvania Bar Association
- Helen Desmond McDonald, Rhode Island Bar Association
- Robert S. Wells, South Carolina Bar
- Gilbert R. Campbell, Jr., Tennessee Bar Association
- Charles Breckenridge Arrington, Jr., The Virginia Bar Association
- Dennis P. Harwick, Washington State Bar Association
- Linda Manning, Canadian Bar Association - Ontario
They were honored at a breakfast Saturday, February 3, during the 1996 ABA Midyear Meeting in Baltimore.
New Products
Once again, we are asking for your support. Please join us as a subscriber to Highlights, which will entitle you to four issues of this newsletter and the attachments and products referenced in each issue. (Subscription does not include special publications offered through other sources.) The cost is $60.00 and the value of the materials received far exceeds that cost. We do not have member dues to help offset our costs, so this is a very important source of revenue to the Commission.
Subscribers may choose from the following:
Workshop Materials:
- 8th National Workshop for Lawyer Assistance Programs State Materials. These books contain reports, articles, procedures, newsletters, etc. from twenty-three (23) States, three (3) Provinces in Canada, and England. It also includes a mock intervention script as well as several sample brochures for programs. The registration list from the Vancouver Workshop also is enclosed. (Two Volumes)
or
- Your subscription also entitles you to four outstanding tapes from the 1995 National Workshop for Lawyer Assistance Programs.
- "How to Increase Your Funding" by Michael J. Crowley and Steve Barrett. September 12, 1995
- AA Speaker: Paul W., Los Angeles, California. Paul was the first celebrity to speak at the ABA's National Workshop - September 12, 1995 - Vancouver, BC
- "Relapse Prevention" by Terence T. Gorski - June 11, 1994 - Chicago, Illinois
- "Depression and/or Alcoholism: How to Evaluate and Refer the Retired or Older Lawyer" by Barbara Harper - September 30, 1994 - Minneapolis, Minnesota
Miscellaneous News
Graham Honored Ben Graham, Chief Deputy DA has earned the gratitude and admiration of the Las Vegas Metro-politan Police Department. He received a "Certificate of Appreciation" from Sheriff Jerry Keller on September 6, 1995 commending him for his professionalism and dedication and for helping to ensure that numerous difficult bills were approved.
New LAP Directors Debut Two new LAP directors were recently hired; James Howard in Missouri and Carol Lind Bryan in Georgia.
Laurence Tucker, president of The Missouri Bar, announced that they are taking steps to deal with a problem of alcoholism in the profession by hiring its first director of the Missouri Lawyers Assistance Program. James Howard joined the program in mid-January. Jim is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Employee Assistance Professional and Certified Substance Abuse Counselor. He has been in private practice and consulting in the development of employee assistance programs since 1988. He also has experience counselling and conducting evaluations in a treatment center.
Alcoholic Lawyers
Are they being coddled by attorney discipline systems?
In 1987, as controversy raged over whether alcoholism was a disease or simply a character flaw, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declared that a lawyer's alcoholism could mitigate punishment for disciplinary offenses. In re Kersey, 520 A.2d 321. According to Hamilton Fox III, who chairs the district's nine-member disciplinary committee, however, Kersey has done more harm than good. Fox recently wrote a disciplinary report calling for its reversal, arguing that "by distorting the goal of the...protection and rehabilitation of alcoholic lawyers and lowering the standard of proof, we have lost sight of the goal of protecting the public."
Fox, a partner at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, was writing in an opinion to disbar a lawyer who had previously escaped disbarment because of his recovery from alcoholism, only to continue to commit misconduct.
Michael J. Crowley, the chair of the ABA Commission on Impaired Attorneys, contends that substance abuse is too prevalent for disciplinary authorities to ignore it or subsequent recovery. He says the answer is having lawyers in recovery help determine whether clemency should be granted, because "no one is tougher on a drunk than an ex-drunk." Crowley practices in Austin, Texas, with Maroney, Crowley, Bankston, Richardson & Hull.
Yes: The recovery excuse is too often abused
by Hamilton Fox III
The District of Columbia treats alcoholic lawyers who violate disciplinary rules with unusual
leniency. Alcoholics in rehabilitation may avoid a sanction and be placed on probation if an expert
testifies that their alcoholism caused the "bad judgment" that made them violate the rules.
We don't allow alcoholics who commit crimes to escape punishment by claiming that their
disease caused their criminality. Why should alcoholic lawyers receive such leniency from the
disciplinary system? One argument is that the goal of the disciplinary process is not punishment,
but that is specious. The acknowledged goals of the proces-ssuch as deterrence-require the
imposition of sanctions.
The theory behind leniency seems to be that an alcoholic cannot be deterred by sanctions and that if the recovering alcoholic is unlikely to sin again, mitigating the sanction will encourage rehabilitation.
None of this is based on empirical data. No one knows how much less (or more) likely the unethical alcoholic lawyer is to commit further violations than the unethical nonalcoholic. Nor does anyone know how many alcoholic lawyers will enter rehabilitation if the carrot of mitigation is unavailable. There is evidence, however, that unethical lawyers, faced with suspension or disbarment, will seize on the mitigating factor of alcoholism.
In July 1990, the District of Columbia Bar counsel filed charges, including misappropriating client funds, against a Washington lawyer. Days before his scheduled hearing, the lawyer entered into treatment for alcoholism. In 1991, a hearing committee found that his misconduct was caused by his alcoholism. Based on the testimony of a psychiatrist and the lawyer's participation in Alcoholics Anonymous, the committee recommended placing him on probation.
Before the case became final, the bar counsel discovered more instances of the lawyer's misappropriating client funds after he entered treatment and became sober. The hearing committee then recommended disbarment. But the lawyer had remained in practice doing damage to other clients for several years.
In addition to offering an excuse to avoid sanctions, leniency toward alcoholics results in disparate treatment. In recent years two partners at major D.C. firms devised schemes to steal from their clients and/or partners. One was disbarred. The other, who stole more than $1 million, convinced a hearing committee to place him on probation because he had bipolar disorder (which is treated the same as alcoholism).
We should not allow these sorts of inequitable results. Helping lawyers with alcoholic problems is a worthy goal of the organized bar. But we all know alcoholic lawyers who do not violate the disciplinary rules. In addition, there are some signs that judicial leniency toward alcoholic lawyers is wearing thin. See Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland v. Kenney, 664 A.2d 854 (Md., Sept. 11, 1995).
A disciplinary system that allows alcoholic lawyers to escape the consequences of their misconduct is one whose goal is to protect lawyers, not the public.
No: We must acknowledge the problem to fight it
by Michael J. Crowley
It is unfortunate, but undeniable, that some lawyers are chemically dependent and suffer from a
physiological disease. The grievance system can no more ignore that fact than it can overlook an
attorney's brain tumor or any other organic condition. To do otherwise is to guarantee a
succession of repeat offenders and invite a rebuke from reviewing courts who expect the bar to
come up with answers to a serious problem-not bury its head in the sand.
To develop an effective policy, disciplinary authorities must understand both the disease and the recovery process. Many already are educated about chemical dependency and can recognize its signs when they see them. They also know that the chemically dependent attorney who is not in recovery must be taken off the streets if the public is to be protected.
But what of the attorney who admits to substance abuse but claims it caused the misconduct and that a program of recovery has begun? To deal effectively with that case, the grievance panel must not only understand the recovery process but be able to evaluate the attorney's recovery efforts. Unfortunately, all too many committees are ignorant about how to do this. The solution, however, is simple: Go to the experts. In this case, the experts are the honest, ethical and moral lawyers who are themselves in recovery.
By far the best solution is to make sure that each disciplinary committee has among its members someone in recovery. Those lawyers are best equipped to ask the tough, probing questions that others may stifle for fear of being "politically incorrect," such as why was recovery begun just before the hearing? They can test the theory being trotted out by some defense "expert" and get straight to the heart of whether a recovery program is bona fide or not. In short, if you want to be sure a drunk lawyer doesn't get special treatment or get let off the hook, put an ex-drunk on the committee, because nobody is harder on a drunk than an ex-drunk.
Those same lawyers and the assistance programs with which they work also can educate the committee on effective recovery programs.
Recovery programs are not sanctuaries that shield lawyers from responsibility for past misconduct. An essential element to every program is rigorous honesty, and personal responsibility is a hallmark of recovery. In some cases, it is probably better for the lawyer to lose his or her law license.
Recovering lawyers already are available for this purpose. Every state in the country has a lawyers' assistance program with volunteer lawyers in recovery. Many programs also are staffed by licensed professionals whose expertise can be invaluable. (The ABA Commission on Impaired Attorneys exists to support those programs and can help anyone needing the assistance of a recovering lawyer to find one in any state or virtually any city.)
The solution to the problem of impaired lawyers is not to duck it. Acknowledging the reality of the problem is not tantamount to coddling wrongdoers, but it does lead to solutions that work.
Reprinted by permission of the ABA Journal. Copyright© 1996. Printed in the U.S.A. American Bar Association.
