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The superhero precariously hangs at the end of his rope. "Oh!!! No!!!" we all gasp.
The tension builds. Surely, it's over for the superhero and maybe even for justice itself. Time is quickly running out.
If you listen carefully enough you can hear the tick, tock,
tick, tock of the clock. The striking of the clock intensifies as the frayed rope slowly unravels and begins to break, first one strand, then the next. Tick, tock, tick, tock.
The tension mounts as another strand gives way.
Escape is unattainable.
Then SNAP!!! Down goes the superhero. "Oh!!! No!!!" we gasp again.
But wait . . .
just then an open dump truck passes immediately underneath our superhero. And as luck would have it, superhero lands directly into the middle of the truck which just happens to be hauling
a load of disgusting - and squishy - horse manure that breaks the superhero's fall.
Superhero lives on to fight another day for justice.
Lawyers Helping Lawyers
("LHL") is the dump truck in this tale. (Yes, I said dump truck!?!) We don't want to be just the dump truck. We do have other aspirations (more on that point later). But, for
now, we will gladly settle for that role.
We will settle for that important role in the drama because you are the superhero. You fight the good fight. Every day you battle for
justice and right. You are lawyer. You are judge. YOU ARE SUPERHERO!!!1
We are dangling at the end of a rope.
Superhero, you are precariously dangling from a
rope. You cannot help your predicament. Again - you are lawyer, you are judge. Some of your ropes are as thick as a mooring rope on a U.S. aircraft carrier. And wow, those are thick. I
saw one once, in San Diego.2 It was about three inches in diameter and I was told that it weighed almost 100 pounds for every 100 feet of length. Dangling from a rope that strong you are safe for now, and with continued good fortune you will remain safe. But you need to understand that you are dangling from a rope, nonetheless.
Some of you dangle from ropes that are not that thick. Some of your ropes are wearing out and beginning to fray. And some of your ropes have frayed to the point that the fall is
imminent. "Oh!!! No!!!" we all gasp. Unfortunately, experience tells us that many of you have ropes that have already snapped. If you disagree, review the Discipline Corner
pages in this and past Utah Bar Journals.
The proof that we are dangling.
The statistics that follow explain some of the reasons why lawyers and judges are precariously dangling at the end of a rope.
The American Bar Association ("ABA")
estimates that 15 to 18% of lawyers and judges suffer from alcohol and drug abuse. That percentage represents a rate nearly twice the rate of the general population.3
In
1990, the Johns Hopkins Medical School conducted a study of over 28 professions finding the legal profession to have the highest rate of clinical depression, a rate 3.6 times more likely
to occur in the legal profession than the other professions examined.4
Suicide currently ranks as one of the leading causes of premature death in our profession.5 Male lawyers are twice as likely as the general population to take their own life.6
The ABA has identified and focused increased attention on numerous other addictive behaviors plaguing lawyers and judges in increasingly visible numbers. Problems in areas
such as gambling, eating disorders, compulsive behaviors, sexual addictions and the recent increase in internet addictions have all joined the lists of recognized abuses and addictions
impacting lawyers and judges.7
The reasons we are dangling.
In this year's January/February issue of the Utah Bar Journal, Dr. Lynn Johnson, local Ph.D. and frequent LHL consultant and speaker, explained that as a group, lawyers and judges share two characteristics in common that lead us, maybe even drive us, into choosing law as a career. Those two characteristics provide helpful insight into why we are perilously suspended in air dangling from that rope.
Perfectionism.
Dr. Johnson described "perfectionism" as the first characteristic. Perfectionism initially guides us to the law, later assists us to excel in
school and ultimately awards us with entrance into the endeavor of law practice. As a profession we emphasize perfection. We are obsessively detail oriented. Our recognized mantra is to
dot those "i"s and cross those "t"s. Being a perfectionist is required for the work we do and serves our clients and us quite well.
However, perfectionism comes
with a burdensome price tag. To reach perfection we work extended hours on difficult and complex tasks. Most of these tasks carry serious consequences, i.e., large sums of money,
imprisonment, maybe life itself. Still other issues deal with the very survival of families, or continued relationships with children, businesses or business partners. The list of battles
we superheroes fight is exhaustively endless.
Likewise, the associated stressors and pressures accompanying the efforts towards perfection in these cases are overwhelming. With
that stress and pressure follows a bevy of maladies hastening ill health and often destroying the quest for the high quality of life that as perfectionists we also strive to enjoy. As my
dad would say, "we have placed ourselves in 'a pickle.'"8
Dr. Johnson described the ill effects of "perfectionism" as follows:
Perfectionism creates a chronic feeling that nothing is good enough. Perfectionism raises cortisol levels in the body, the stress hormone that is helpful in the short run and very
damaging in the long run. High cortisol levels lead to burnout, vulnerability to infections, increased healing time, and mental and emotional depression. Perfectionists are more
vulnerable to depression and anxiety, harder to treat with either therapy or drugs, and much more likely to commit suicide when things go very wrong.9
Does any of this sound familiar? Do you feel yourself dangling from that rope? Do you at least acknowledge that our passion or drive for perfection makes us vulnerable to becoming one of
our own league-leading statistics? Well . . . I'm not done yet.
Pessimism.
The second characteristic we possess as a group according to Dr. Johnson, is
"pessimism." While I will quibble with him on the term he uses, his point is well taken and supported by research. The Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1990 published the
findings of a study examining graduate school programs across numerous professional fields. The significant results for our purposes here are that in every graduate school program
evaluated, optimists outperformed pessimists save one profession. Yes, the legal profession wins here, too.10
While I much prefer the word "skeptic" to
"pessimist," inarguably we are trained and need to be pessimistic or skeptical to excel at our tasks for the benefit of our clients. We solve problems. Remember, we are
superheroes. Our profession requires us to anticipate the worst of situations and even people in order to most effectively represent the interests of our clients. We learn to be skeptical
of what our clients tell us (and what they are not telling us), of what witnesses and opposing counsel say and of those decisions we hear from the judges in our cases and read in the
opinions from others. In fairness to those judges, I cannot even begin to imagine the skepticism - and maybe here the more accurate word choice is pessimism - that judges experience as lawyer after lawyer and witness after witness spout adverse explanations and contrary versions of a single event or series of events.
Unfortunately, like perfectionism, pessimism and/or skepticism reaps a costly price from our fundamental good health. High stress, chronic depression, and disillusion are among
the consequences that flow from living lives full of pessimism and skepticism. Dr. Johnson describes the life of a lawyer (or judge) as doubly susceptible to the consequences of pessimism
and skepticism because we not only hold these perspectives but are enmeshed in a career where the negatives of life really do happen.11
As lawyers and judges we are
thrust in the middle of conflict to resolve these negatives, often fighting to minimize or reduce their effects on others. Of course, as true superheroes we carry on our shoulders many of
the burdens for the clients as they employ us to assume their problems and often assign us the responsibility if not the ownership to satisfactorily resolve their fate. Multiply the
effects of this transference of stress by the number of clients so situated and then double that amount by the pessimism attributed to the thoughts and worries that you might let the
client down, and well . . . you do the math.
That Frayed rope on the cover.
That frayed rope on the cover of this journal is symbolic of the vulnerability we have as
lawyers, paralegals, and judges. We become even more susceptible if we deny or ignore the evidence. Remember, knowledge is power. Take advantage of this information and put it to use for
you. You now know the vulnerability. Use the knowledge to safeguard your practice. Use the knowledge to help another. The statistics discussed herein are represented by real people, and
many of those who have become a statistic are more similar to you and have more in common with you than they are different from you.
Within the pages of this Utah Bar Journal you can read stories which document specific past experiences with the damaged or broken rope. Statistics bear themselves out, even here in Utah. Examining the numbers demonstrates the importance of being aware of our vulnerable spot suspended above the ground hanging tightly onto the rope. We have approximately 7,000 members of the Utah Bar. Each year the law schools both within and out of the state add more to our numbers. If 15 to 18 % of those numbers, as identified by the ABA, will suffer from an alcohol or substance abuse addiction, my calculations indicate, employing the more conservative figure, that 1,050 lawyers and judges will experience the problem sometime in their career. The costs in human terms are immeasurable. The direct impact on clients, the reputation of the legal profession and the costs associated with the malpractice and disciplinary process are overwhelming indeed.
The Oregon Lawyers Assistance Program ("LAP") conducted a study that calculated the costs for malpractice and disciplinary cases. The Oregon Bar, through the
intervention of their LAP in documented substance abuse cases alone, demonstrated savings of over a million dollars in the five year focus period.12
Hopefully, even you
superheroes hanging on to big fat mooring ropes can see the wisdom and direct benefits to having an active LHL program as a member benefit. The easy vision to comprehend is having the
program available to catch those who fall as their rope weakens and snaps. The Oregon LAP demonstrates the wisdom and vision of the program that does more than catch those who fall. The
Oregon LAP demonstrates the rewards, both in human and other terms, from utilizing and supporting a program that educates about the problems and that provides assistance to repair and
strengthen the ropes either prior to or as they begin to show wear.
The roles of LHL.
The dump truck.
I have analogized LHL as the open dump truck to catch those who fall.13 I indicated we are thrilled to play that role in our drama. We are prepared and eager to assist those who need help once their rope has snapped. We are indeed mindful that this task is our primary role and the foundation from which the ABA built the national LAP program. However, we do not desire to wait until the rope has broken before we are asked to intervene. We are fervent in our desire to assist lawyers, paralegals, and judges with help arranging the tools they require to prevent the rope from breaking.
The rope-ologist.
I now return to my comment that LHL wants and needs to be more than just the dump truck. For the lack of a better word, allow me to invent one; LHL wants to be the rope-ologists. Rope-ologists could also be called the rope doctors, the rope specialists or the rope scientists. Our job as rope-ologists is about prevention, avoiding the frayed rope.
LHL's closely related secondary role must be assisting to keep those ropes strong and refurbished when starting to show the wear from the tasks of superheroing. Prevention is not
a novel concept, but unfortunately it might be a foreign concept to superheroes. Superheroes will tell you they are fine, they don't have any problems. I have even heard a superhero or
two say, "not here, not in Utah." Superheroes do not need prevention. Superheroes solve other people's problems; superheroes don't have problems. After all, we are lawyers, and we are judges.
Not true. Prevention is critical to our health and function as lawyers and judges. Excusing the cliché, even if we dangle from the strongest of mooring ropes, we can "lose
our grip." Even if we are comfortable with, or thrive on the danger and/or the excitement of the dangling we endure as superheroes, one strong and blustery storm may weaken us or
weather our rope and we can quickly, and sometimes with little warning, hear the snap and the cry, "Oh!!! No!!!"
As rope-ologists, LHL can assist to prolong the strength
and durability of the rope. We can do this by sponsoring CLE that focuses on quality of life issues. Why quality of life? The rope, that's why. The construction of the rope is a masterful
design. The mooring rope, in particular, is not a rope at all, but a combination of ropes that together form the rope we see. As many as seven individual ropes are braided around a single
core rope creating the dimension, strength and durability of the mooring rope.
The point cannot be lost. Individually each smaller rope, or strand as we now call it, could never
perform the task alone. If one of the smaller strands is somehow damaged and/or breaks, then the remaining strands must shoulder even greater stress and burden than they were designed to
withstand. The end result is the overall deterioration and eventual snapping of the rope. Only when added together and braided around the core rope can the rope hold up to its task.
Quality of life CLE can complement the judge and lawyer to assure that attention is paid to the individual strands that make up our ropes. Most people's ropes are made of strands
representing in some fashion the professional, social, mental, physical and spiritual aspects of our lives. Each person can define his or her own strands to build or strengthen their
rope, but as observed in the example of the mooring rope, your strands must be balanced to do the work most efficiently and with the least amount of stress and wear on the rope.
Healthy strands make healthy ropes, and healthy ropes make healthy superheroes. Healthy superheroes more happily and enjoyably function in this stress-laden profession. An unhealthy
strand, or strands, increases your vulnerability to stress and decreases efficiency causing the enjoyment quotient to unsurprisingly drop right along with it. As important, the health
quotient, both physical and mental, begins to diminish as well.
Get involved with LHL.
LHL will best serve the Bar membership as both rope-ologist and dump truck. LHL
will be more effective to the Bar as a whole in the area of prevention as well as damage control. This is where the Bar membership enters the equation. LHL needs an active group of
lawyers and judges who are willing not only to participate in the work we are doing but willing to get involved directly by referring those whose ropes have begun to fray to LHL.
If you have survived a particular stress-inducing experience, or are surviving one, volunteer to be on our lists at some future date, take a call and spend some time to help another
through that or a similar problem. If you have dealt with alcohol or substance abuse, either directly or indirectly and personally know or understand recovery, volunteer to be on our
lists and confidentially talk with and assist someone looking for that help.
Be a superhero's superhero.
I can personally guarantee you rewards beyond measure from
reaching out a hand and assisting a colleague through a tough time. With good planning and support for one another, and even some luck and good timing, we might be able to survive that
frayed rope on the cover and actually put our feet on the ground and more fully enjoy our careers and our lives both in and away from the office.
Please contact us at LHL with any comments, suggestions and requests for assistance or willingness to help. Thank you.
Telephone: 579-0404, or
in-state toll free at (800) 530-3743
www.LawyersHelpingLawyers.org
Footnotes
1. I use this term unabashedly. You are members of an honorable profession and you do honorable work. You have all worked extremely hard and long to get your degrees and obtain your
licenses to practice law. You have great expectations and you deserve to achieve them. With very few exceptions, the men and women I have met as lawyers and judges within this state are
impressive and immensely talented individuals. Nearly each and every day, these lawyers and judges are required to do extraordinary tasks as they represent and service clients. That they
do the extraordinary so routinely qualifies them in my mind as "super," and many I have met have become my "heroes."
2. At the Annual Bar Conference on Del
Coronado in 2000, the Utah Bar sponsored a tour of the USS Ronald Reagan. Included among the many incredible and impressive details of the aircraft carrier were the mooring ropes which
held the ship to the dock.
3. www.abanet.org/legalservices/colap/home (American Bar Association CoLap website.)
4. Meyer J. Cohen, Bumps in the Road, GPSOLO, July/August 2001, at 20.
5. Id.
6. Annual Report, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, 1992.
7. Carol P. Waldhauser, Identifying Addiction, GPSOLO, July/August 2001, at 22.
8. Baseball term describing the event where the base runner is caught between bases running back and forth in ever decreasing space attempting to avoid the inevitable put out.
I've heard and seen this term described elsewhere as "the hot box."
9. Lynn Johnson, Stress Management, Utah Bar Journal, January/February 2003, at 12.
10.Id.
11.Id.
12.Ira Zarov and Barbara S. Fishleder, Highlights (an ABA newsletter), Spring 2002, at 1-2. The study by the Oregon Lawyer's Assistance Program, completed in 2001, compares the discipline complaints and malpractice claims of 55 recovering lawyers from five years before their sobriety dates through five years after their sobriety dates. They found a 30% annual malpractice rate before sobriety and an 8% rate after sobriety. Applying the Oregon cost per claim average, the study concluded that the reduced incidents of malpractice claims in the five years after sobriety resulted in a savings of $ 200,000 per year. Equally impressive was the finding that the Oregon annual claim rate for malpractice was 13.5 % among lawyers generally, compared to only 8% for the rate of the lawyers in recovery.
13.I
intend no disparagement by suggesting that those who fall may land in a dump truck, or that those who work with LHL are dump trucks. But I like the analogy for two reasons. First, as indicated in our drama, the dump truck most assuredly contains a disgusting substance, usually garbage or manure, which helps to break the fall but necessarily gets all over the fallen superhero. So it is with life. When we stumble there are consequences that follow and oftentimes a price to pay or a need to "clean-up." This analogy operates to encourage us to get help sooner than later in order to avoid an even messier cleanup. Second, much too frequently people extend the fall into the dump truck as a judgment that the fallen have landed where they belong, that they too are garbage or manure. That judgment is harsh and often made for reasons of discomfort and insecurity. Rather than appreciate that there, but for the grace of God, go I; we feel better if we can "throw away" the fallen and attribute the fall to a general character flaw or other weakness. This thought allows us to comfortably remain unaffected by the fall of someone with whom we share so much in common. Being able to distance ourselves from the fallen we can then feel less vulnerable ourselves. We must resist this temptation to distinguish them from us. We must recognize that addiction, depression and the like are diseases. And diseases can be treated. But then that's a whole other article.
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