| THE ONTARIO LAWYERS’ ASSISTANCE PROGRAM An Overview of the Problems Experienced by the Legal Profession In Ontario In 1978, a group of alcoholic lawyers in recovery organized to form the Ontario Bar Alcoholism Program. Its goal was to assist other lawyers struggling with alcohol addiction to get into recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous. A caller for help would get at least one volunteer lawyer and sometimes two or three answering a call for help. Although the presenting problem was alcohol, these peer support lawyers also dealt with the underlying problems of stress, burnout, financial tragedy, family issues and the myriad of other issues that any addict carries with him or her. None of this was in any way formal. Each volunteer shared his or her own experience, strength and hope with the calling lawyer to assist with recovery and entry into the network of Alcoholics Anonymous. Many of those lawyers are still involved in the Ontario Lawyers' Assistance Program today. In 1995 in Ontario, there was a new movement to deal with other issues affecting the legal profession. With the growth of lawyer assistance programs in some other Canadian provinces and across the United States, models of a broad-brush program were available. The expertise and resource of Adrian Hill who started many of the above-noted programs was available in Ontario’s back yard. Adrian was consulted by the Legal Profession Assistance Conference in Canada (LPAC) and the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyers Assistance Plans (ABA-CoLAP) to formulate, train staff and volunteers and assist with program implementation. In Ontario, Adrian was a willing and eager leader and participant acting as the Chair of the Ontario Bar Alcoholism Program. With the addition of John Starzynski to OLAP bringing his experience with stress, burnout, depression and other mental health issues to the table, an expansion of the program was possible. The Ontario Bar Alcoholism Program became the Ontario Lawyers' Assistance Program to give the marketing message of expanded areas of help. These included alcohol and drug abuse and addiction problems, mental health issues and stress and burnout. Future program expansion would cover gambling and process addictions. Written resources were made available through professionally-written courses by LPAC and purchased by OLAP. Peer support volunteers were recruited by word-of-mouth connections, through advertisements calling for volunteers and through the growing number of presentations to various legal groups with encouragement for those who have “been there” to help. With the designation of John Starzynski as the Volunteer Executive Director, an effective across-the-province list of peer support volunteers was complied. This list grows every day. The early days of the expanded program saw slow inroads into the credibility of the legal community. The Commentary to Rule 6.01(3) confirmed the complete confidentiality for OLAP peer support volunteers except in cases of “learning that the lawyer being assisted is engaging in or may in the future engage in serious misconduct or criminal activity related to the lawyer’s practice.” This is the only requirement for OLAP to report lawyers in trouble to the Law Society. Only one case has necessitated the use of this reporting requirement. As OLAP got the message out of the confidentiality and safety of the program, callers increased. In 1997, 70 different callers asked for help. In 1998, a special grant from the then Canadian Bar Association – Ontario (now the Ontario Bar Association(OBA)) gave OLAP seed money to expand, build and market the program. 1998 saw 200 callers come to OLAP. In 1999, CBAO granted further monies and a proposal was put to The Law Society of Upper Canada, The Lawyers’ Professional Indemnity Company and CBAO for full program funding. The LSUC and LPIC granted OLAP cash funds for the operation of the program with CBAO providing in-kind services – meeting space, administrative support, a telephone and a desk. The first full-time employee of OLAP, Moira Tobin, was hired to put together a mission statement, set the parameters for priorities and manage the fledgling program. More presentations yielded 450 callers in 1999. Moira Tobin left the program at the end of 1999. Sensing the need for more professionalism with the need for the skills of a social worker-counsellor, Leota Embleton was hired in May, 2000 to fulfill these requirements. The results were immediate as the aggressive marketing of the program in the previous years had made OLAP a known, safe and credible source of help. Callers increased to 1,000 in 1999. More volunteers were recruited. Effective case management, monitoring and follow-up procedures put into place through Leota’s expertise began to give us a picture of the problems experienced by the legal profession specifically in Ontario. The case breakdown for the year 2000 showed 47% mental wellness issues, 22% addictions, 14% other issues and 3% physical health-related concerns. This translated into 150 cases meaning a significant involvement of Adrian, Leota, John or a peer support lawyer volunteer to address the issues presented. Usage of the program based on 20,000 lawyers in Ontario available to use the service was 5% translating into a .75% usage. With the reality that the real number of lawyers insured by LPIC was 7,000 the figures change to usage of 5.8% and case percentage of .88%. If government lawyers and lawyers in firms providing their own employee assistance programs are factored in to bring the actual number of non-EAP provided lawyers to 14,000, the figures become program usage of 7.1% with a case percentage of 1.07%. The summary for the year 2000, is consolidated as follows: Number of lawyers % age program usage % age case usage 20,000 5% .75% 17,000 5.8% .88% Using the same formula for 2001, the number of callers reached 1,200 and cases increased to 206. Extrapolating the figures, the results show: Number of lawyers % age program usage % age case usage 17,000 7.1% 1.21% 14,000 8.6% 1.47% These figures show that a peer-support non-counselling program has had an increase of program usage and case incidence. It is significant to the health of the legal profession on Ontario. The year 2001 problem overview showed stress at 45%, mental wellness issues at 19%, addiction at 15%, family issues at 11%, financial at 5% and physical health issues at 5%. For a program with one professionally-trained and full-time staff, these numbers are impressive and overwhelming. Adding a professional counseling component would increase the effectiveness of service to the profession of the best of both worlds – professional counseling and effective peer support. Finally, the figures show that program usage and case usage do not correlate 100% so that productive assistance can be given to callers without the absolute necessity of counseling in all cases.
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Legal Profession Assistance Conference (LPAC) |Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP) | Lawyers Assistance Program of British Columbia (BCLAP) | Nova Scotia Lawyers Assistance Program (NSLAP) | Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) | The Lawyers Assistance Program (LINK) | The Alberta Lawyers Assistance Program | Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (Saskatchewan) | The Lawyers Professional Indemnity Company (LawPRO) | Law Practice Consulting |
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