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Originally published in Student
Lawyer magazine, December 2003 (Vol. 32, No. 4). All rights
reserved.
Law Grad Finds "The Other Bar"
Do You Have an Abuse Problem?
Resources on Substance Abuse
Under the Influence
Drug and alcohol dependence affects law student's health and
their prospects for bar admission. Law schools and legal groups
are working to raise awareness of the problem and develop solutions,
but the task isn't easy.
by Cynthia L. Cooper
(Cynthia L. Cooper is a lawyer and writer in New York City.)
Law school without liquor poses a serious problem for Jana Pritchard.
The 29-year-old law student in Chicago, who's halfway through her
J.D. program, is a self-confessed binge drinker-"wine, beer,
mixed drinks, shots on occasion, pretty much anything," she
says. She tried giving up alcohol for a while in law school, but,
within months, she started again.
"The thought of making it through law school without drinking
is stultifying," says Pritchard (who, like some other students
interviewed for this article, chose a pseudonym for herself). "'Celebrate
your victories and drown your defeats.' The law school culture supports
that." She notes an irony of law school orientation: A talk
on substance abuse is followed by an event at which everyone goes
out and gets drunk.
The pause in Pritchard's intake came after she drank too much at
a law school function during her second semester. "Everybody
was wasted," she says. "Nobody thought much about it."
The next morning, still intoxicated and feeling miserable, Pritchard
ran a red light and was pulled over. Although she avoided a drunk-driving
charge, she decided her drinking was out of control and began attending
Alcoholics Anonymous. But staying sober seemed more than she could
bear, so she went back to her drinking ways.
Pritchard's condition, and even her critique of the law school
culture, is commanding new attention in legal circles. The issue
has ramifications ranging from the health of law students and lawyers
to the prospects of bar admission for applicants who struggle with
addiction. American Bar Association leaders are among those who
say it's time to deal with the problem directly.
"Are law schools doing all they can to prevent the problem
of substance abuse? Or, in fact, are law schools, in some way, encouraging
the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs?" asks ABA executive
director Robert Stein. Stein and others raised pointed questions
to deans at the first-ever conference on the topic, "Meeting
Our Responsibilities: Substance Abuse and Law Schools," held
in New York City in June.
The familiar celebrations with abundant carafes of wine and kegs
of beer are only the tip of the problem, says Stein, a former law
school dean who 10 years ago sat on a committee of the Association
of American Law Schools that studied chemical dependency in law
schools. Avoidance at law schools is the bigger concern, he told
the 150 conference participants from 35 law schools.
"We experienced a lot of denial by deans of law schools at
the time," Stein says. "They said, 'It may be a problem
somewhere, but not in my law school, I can assure you.'"
The numbers appear to suggest otherwise. The 1993 AALS survey of
3,400 law students at 19 schools found that 3.3 percent of law students
said they needed help to control their substance abuse, and approximately
12 percent said they abused alcohol during law school. That amounts
to 15,000 law students nationwide who acknowledge problem drinking.
Uncalculated are the number who get into trouble when they inhale,
shoot, snort, or pop their substances.
During the last decade, the legal profession began facing up to
a crisis of chemical dependency problems. Studies indicate that
lawyers engage in higher-than-average drug and alcohol abuse, affecting
from 15 percent to 18 percent of the profession, compared with 10
percent of the general population. The impact on clients can be
devastating when lawyers miss filing deadlines, spend money held
in trust, or are asleep at the switch in trial.
Disciplinary bodies discover that chemical dependency problems
are at the root of 40 percent to 70 percent of complaints about
lawyers, says New York state Chief Judge Judith Kaye, president
of the Conference of Chief Justices. "Some of the stories of
clients who lost their life savings are heartbreaking," Kaye
told participants at the "Meeting Our Responsibilities"
conference. "I believe the court system owes it to the public
to do all we can."
Every state now operates a "lawyer assistance program,"
or LAP, to help lawyers and judges with addiction problems confidentially.
Last year, members of the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs
(commonly called CoLAP) started reaching out to law schools.
"We need to help lawyers at the earliest possible stage-we
need to help law students," says Tennessee Circuit Court Judge
Robert Childers, who co-chairs CoLAP's law school outreach committee,
formed a year ago. Childers traces his urgency on the subject to
the suicide of a colleague in Memphis in 1987.
"People are suffering from these issues," Childers says.
"Rather than sit around at a wake, I thought there ought to
be some way to help."
The ABA is urging law schools and state LAPs to step up their efforts
to reach out to students before they crash. And it's not just students-professors
are a concern, as well. The 1993 AALS commission noted that law
school faculty are not immune from the problems of substance abuse.
It recommended a clear, written policy for faculty and a plan for
"early, informal intervention."
John Sebert, the ABA's consultant on legal education and former
dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law, recalls sending
a substance-abusing faculty member to treatment as one of the hardest
things he encountered in his tenure. "I didn't have a choice,"
Sebert says. "I had a duty to my students."
Lawyer assistance programs aim to heighten awareness of the problem
in law schools by going on the road, although some schools don't
cooperate and some students "laugh it off," says William
Hammon, chair of the New York City LAP. But Meloney Crawford Chadwick,
a lawyer on the staff of the Oregon Attorney Assistance Program
who frequently speaks at law schools, persists anyway.
"I'd rather talk to a law student today who might have some
issues than talk to a lawyer who is in deep trouble and says his
problems began in law school," Chadwick says.
Chadwick is a recovering alcoholic who became sober in 1988 when
she experienced embarrassing blackouts, seven years after her graduation
from Temple University School of Law.
"I started to cross the line in law school," she says.
"My attitude was, 'I'm working hard, I'm going to play hard.'
I would have said, 'Everybody does this,' but, in retrospect, I
don't think everybody did do it.
"You can tell yourself a lot of things that seem to make sense.
No one starts out thinking 'I'm going to be an alcoholic' or 'I'll
have a drug problem.' You think, 'I'm having a bad day,' and this
is the answer. You can be really intelligent in some ways and have
a blind spot when it comes to your own impairment."
Chadwick and other experts correct old-time myths that alcoholism
is a moral failing and simplistic notions of a substance abuser
as a Skid Row resident. Alcoholism, they point out, is a disease-and
a treatable one. It crosses class, race, educational level, and
socio-economic status.
Medical authorities describe addiction as a disease in which there
is a preoccupation with alcohol or other drugs, coupled with a loss
of control over their consumption, says the New York State Bar Association
LAP. It adds that the addicted person will have a condition that
is relieved only by a drink or drug and that, once relieved, sets
up the body's demand for more.
Denial, one of the trickiest aspects of addiction, is the use of
"psychological maneuvers to reduce awareness that alcohol is
the cause of an individual's problems, rather than a solution to
those problems," according to the National Council on Alcoholism
and Drug Dependence.
To encourage law school deans to take action on chemical dependency,
the ABA outreach committee opened a hotline, printed stickers and
advertisements, and is developing an informational kit. CoLAP operates
a closed online forum for law students dealing with alcoholism and
substance abuse. Approximately two dozen students nationwide participate
in the e-mail list, according to commission director Donna Spilis.
James Moore, chair of the New York State Lawyer Assistance Trust,
says schools should have a written policy to address alcohol and
drug use, serve less alcohol at student functions, create relationships
with LAPs in order to help students confidentially, warn students
that an unaddressed problem may affect their ability to be admitted
to practice, and enlist someone as a designated person for student
assistance.
But if the designee is on the faculty, few students are likely
to pour out their problems, says Natasha Woodland, a 2003 graduate
of the University of Maine School of Law who served as the only
student member on the ABA law school outreach committee.
"I would hear the deans say, 'Our doors are always open, you
can talk to us,'" Woodland says. "My response was, 'Excuse
me, do you really think they are going to talk to you?' Students
see how they deal with someone who is late to class. How are they
going to deal with someone who is drunk in class?" As a solution,
Woodland urges that student representatives be identified to meet
confidentially with their peers.
At Touro Law Center in Huntington, N.Y., associate dean Kenneth
Rosenblum recruited first-year student Edwin Grasmann to act as
an on-campus representative on substance abuse, in conjunction with
the state's LAP.
"Students come to me. I proceed gingerly and carefully because
they are all scared," says Grasmann, 47, a medical doctor who
himself is in recovery for substance abuse. One Touro student, troubled
by his alcohol intake, now attends recovery meetings; a half-dozen
others sought advice. "You're not going to help a person unless
they are ready for help," Grasmann says. "I'm there, and
I'm available."
For some law students, law school is recovery, and they want to
keep it that way. At South Texas College of Law in Houston, Alfred
"Cal" Baker, a second-year student, founded Law Students
Anonymous, which began meeting this fall. Baker, 42, is now a licensed
chemical dependency counselor. But in his earlier years, he found
his way to a cornucopia of substances-alcohol, marijuana, LSD, mushrooms,
cocaine, methamphetamines.
"I kept saying I was going to stop, but I could not,"
Baker says. "I had pretty much lost everything-my job, my apartment,
my transportation. I traded my motorcycle for a pound of pot."
Twelve years ago, Baker entered a 30-day residential treatment
program. He has been clean and sober since. At night, he counsels
teenagers with substance abuse problems.
"I tried to be part of student activities in law school,"
Baker says. "Everything the student bar promotes is in the
form of 'let's go blow off stress' and involves alcohol. I don't
have any interest in it."
Baker secured support of assistant dean Gena Lewis Singleton to
start a peer assistance group with a hotline and regular meetings
at the school. "When we talk with peers, we're helping other
students cope with the stress-rather than [being] a legal fraternity
with another of their parties," he says. "These are people
who understand the pressures of law school and don't want to deal
with them in a bad way."
An issue of great concern to law students in recovery is bar admission.
For the bar application process, most states require disclosure
of legal infractions related to substance abuse, such as drunk-driving
arrests; others inquire into substance abuse or treatment. Some
establish a period of probation or other conditions to admission;
others do not.
Early on in law school, Adam Walton (a pseudonym he chose for this
article) contacted the character and fitness committee of his state's
bar. A second-year student at a southeastern law school, Walton
cleaned up six years ago, leaving behind a "colorful"
history, he says. He is monitored by monthly reports and participates
in a random drug-screening program. Three to four nights a week
he meets with lawyers and law students in recovery-oriented meetings.
("It gets people on the right track, and it's also great networking,"
Walton says.) In August, the character and fitness committee announced
that he will be permitted to apply for admission.
"If you do have a DUI on your record [and will be seeking
admission to the bar], you want to talk to us," says Betty
Daugherty, director of the Lawyers and Judges Assistance Program
of the Mississippi Bar. "Offenses that have to do with drinking
are red flags. If you have gone to treatment, we are able to work
with the bar admission committee."
New York lawyer Kathleen Kettles-Russotti, who entered law school
after five years in sobriety, worried about how the bar admissions
committee would respond to a drunk-driving conviction. She explained
on her application that the conviction was a decade old, she had
no further infractions, and she participates in recovery meetings.
At an in-person interview, the examiner commended her recovery program.
Even with the positive experiences of applicants like Walton and
Kettles-Russotti, many with substance abuse problems are concerned.
Some law students say their colleagues avoid treatment because they
fear that getting help would send the wrong signals to bar examiners
and result in denial of bar admission.
"Students think once they get treatment, they are on a blacklist.
That's a real bad dynamic to have out there," says Colin Wellenkamp,
a 2003 graduate of Creighton University School of Law in Omaha,
Neb., and a former student delegate to the ABA House of Delegates.
The ABA Law Student Division is helping to research and promote
a "best practices" standard on recovery and bar admission,
Wellenkamp says.
The topic is said to offer a fiery educational tool. "You
want to get a group of law students interested in the subject of
substance abuse? Talk to them about whether they deserve to be admitted
to the bar or not," says Aviva Orenstein, a professor at Indiana
University School of Law in Bloomington, now visiting at Benjamin
N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. Orenstein suggests using chemical
dependency hypotheticals in clinics and in courses on professional
responsibility, civil procedure, evidence, and negotiations.
Enhanced policies also are working their way into law school handbooks.
St. John's University School of Law in Jamaica, N.Y., says consumption
of alcoholic beverages "should never be the primary focus of
any student activity." Cornell University policies, which extend
to the law school, prohibit "all-you-can-drink" events
and require that non-alcoholic beverages be served when alcohol
is.
For some students, law school is the time to dump old drinking
and drugging habits in the pursuit of professionalism. Prior to
law school, Linda Wright (her pseudonym), a student at a western
law school, drank Southern Comfort from morning to night-a fifth
a day, she estimates.
"I would sip all day," says Wright, who is scheduled
to graduate in December. "I kept a constant buzz. I didn't
feel right any other way. I was a high-functioning drunk. I would
work, pay bills. My friends said, 'You can't be an alcoholic.' By
the time law school started, I knew I was. I had the feeling that
my law professors wouldn't tolerate it."
In the first week of law school, Wright stopped drinking and began
alcoholic recovery meetings. She had a setback two years later and
took up Southern Comfort again. But within five weeks, she suffered
a kidney infection and found blood in her urine. With the support
of friends in recovery, she poured the Southern Comfort down the
drain-this time for good.
Wright remembers a cartoon showing two drunks at a tavern. One tells
the other he could have been a lawyer, but he couldn't pass the
bar. "That could have been me," she says. "It doesn't
matter what stress I'm under. Drinking is not an option."
Law Grad Finds 'The Other Bar'
Years of cocaine addiction finally caught up with Sara St. Phalle,
a 1999 California law school graduate. Even though she passed California's
demanding bar exam, St. Phalle can't practice. It's the other part
of the bar admission process-demonstrating good character and fitness-that's
the stumbling block.
Addiction "took away every potential that I had," says
the 32-year-old (who chose a pseudonym for herself for this article).
During her years in law school, St. Phalle did cocaine daily in
the school's restroom. She was especially adept at hiding her addiction,
she says. "I plowed through law school and did really well,"
she says. "I didn't consider myself a junkie. To me, it was
'why wouldn't you do this?' It gave me a fake sense of self-confidence."
At the same time, her drug use outgrew her wallet, so St. Phalle
began writing herself "loans" on her employer's account.
The scheme unraveled after she had received her J.D., and St. Phalle
was slapped with felony charges for fraud. Even then, she clung
to her drugs until, while awaiting sentencing, the police stopped
a car in which she was riding with 3 grams of cocaine in her bag.
The officer didn't conduct a search, but, she says, "It was
a wake-up call. I was so fearful that night. It wasn't fun any more.
I said, 'This is it.'"
A lawyer helped St. Phalle connect with a self-help group. She
served a year incarcerated in a halfway house on the fraud conviction.
Now released, she's studying drug counseling and participating in
a group of legal professionals who are recovering from substance
abuse-"The Other Bar."
Down the road, St. Phalle hopes to prove she can be trusted to
practice law. "I'm in a repair mode," she says. "It's
tragic, but it's changed my life for the better."
-Cynthia Cooper
Do You Have an Abuse Problem?
If you answer "yes" to one or more of the following questions,
adapted from Florida's lawyer assistance program, you may want to
contact your state's LAP or seek other help.
o Have your professors, classmates, family, or friends suggested
that your work is being affected by your addictive behavior or your
moods?
o Do you ever feel that you just can't face certain situations
or that you need a drink or drug to do so?
o Do you drink or use drugs alone and avoid contact with others?
o Have you ever had a loss of memory while using alcohol or drugs,
although apparently functioning (e.g., a blackout)?
o Do you ever use alcohol or drugs before a class, exam, or social
function to calm your nerves or improve your performance?
o Have you missed or rescheduled a class, exam, or other appointment
because of substances, or just because you felt unable to function?
o Is your addictive behavior or your mental state making you careless
of your scholastic responsibilities, family's welfare, or other
personal obligations?
o Do you minimize the amount of substances you actually are using
or the way you really feel?
o Have you ever been hospitalized directly or indirectly as a result
of your drinking or drug use?
o Do you find you are sleeping or eating substantially less or
more?
o Have you found yourself thinking about harming yourself?
Resources on Substance Abuse
If you or other law students you know have problems with substance
abuse or recovery, here are some places to find help:
ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP),
Confidential Hotline for Law Students and Lawyers
1-800-LAW-LAPS
ABA CoLAP listserv (closed and anonymous) for law students in
recovery
E-mail: spilisd@staff.abanet.org
Directory of state and local Lawyer Assistance Programs (LAPs)
www.abanet.org/legalservices/colap/lapdirectory.html
GPSolo magazine "Bumps in the Road" issue (July/August
2001)
The members' magazine of the ABA General Practice, Solo, and Small
Firm Section published articles on alcoholism, substance abuse,
gambling, Internet addiction, adult attention deficit disorder,
and other problem areas in the lives of lawyers.
www.abanet.org/genpractice/magazine/julyaug2001/julyaug01.html
International Lawyers in Alcoholics Anonymous
www.ilaa.org
Alcoholics Anonymous
www.alcoholics-anonymous.org
Narcotics Anonymous
www.wsoinc.com
Sobriety and Recovery Resources
www.recoveryresources.org
Women for Sobriety
www.womenforsobriety.org
-Cynthia Cooper
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