Michael Cooper, NYLAT Chair
NYLAT Chair Michael Cooper’s column from the LAT NEWS, summer issue, first appeared in the New York Law Journal on July 10, 2009 and appears here with permission of incisive US Properties, LLC, all rights reserved. For information contact 877.257.3382, reprints@incisivemedia.com.
The dilemma of reaching large law firms on LAP-related issues is addressed –
Alcoholism, other substance abuse and mental illness spare no segment of society at large or of the legal profession. Lawyers in private practice, public service (governmental and non-governmental) and academia are all susceptible to these illnesses. The pressures that drive lawyers to drink, to use illegal substances and to overuse prescription drugs are probably greater now than at any time in the past half-century. And those pressures, while felt throughout the legal profession, may be taking their heaviest toll in the large law firms of New York City and the State’s other urban centers.
The large corporate and financing transactions in which these firms specialize have dwindled in number and size during this economic downturn. Firms find that they are overstaffed to meet the current demand for their services. And increasingly clients are becoming more sophisticated and demanding as to how their affairs are handled and how much they will pay for legal services. It was saddening, but not as surprising as it would have been two years ago, to read that a partner in one large law firm had taken his life, as had an associate in another major firm.
No one knows how prevalent abuse of alcohol and other substances and mental illness are in large law firms. But it is a statistical certainty that these problems exist within their walls. The sheer number of lawyers in an office may increase the likelihood that an individual’s problems will go unnoticed. It is easier for an individual wishing to escape attention to do so when he or she is one of a few hundred in a multi-storied office.
There is reason to believe that the pervasiveness and seriousness of these issues are not fully appreciated. I am the only large firm lawyer on the 21-member Board of the Lawyer Assistance Trust, and the Lawyer Assistance Committees of the New York State and New York City Bar Associations, which between them have more than one hundred members, include only a handful of lawyers who practice in large law firms.
The challenge is two-fold. First, and perhaps more difficult, the leaders of large law firms must be sensitized to the seriousness and extent of these problems; they must be made to realize that their most prized asset—their human capital — is jeopardized by the threat of these illnesses, and that a problem recognized only when an individual has injured himself, his family and/or his client, has been recognized too late. When a lawyer—partner or associate — shows signs of inebriation at a social function with colleagues or clients, those signs may be symptomatic of an illness that cannot be shrugged off as having “one too many” or a “good time.” One sizable law firm, Hiscock & Barclay, held a two hour Lawyer Assistance Program CLE for all attorneys and staff with lunch provided. All of its offices from Boston to Buffalo were video linked so everyone participated in the program at the same time. I hope other firms will follow that example.
Once it is realized that a lawyer may be in need of assistance in addressing alcohol or other substance abuse, help is only as far away as the telephone. The lawyer assistance programs at the New York State and New York City Bar Associations, and the Nassau County Bar Association, can arrange for appropriate professional counseling and, if indicated, in-patient treatment, as can the Executive Director of the Erie County Bar Association. Their contact information can be found on the Trust’s website, www.nylat.org.