Eileen Travis, director of the NYCBA Lawyers Assistance Program.Photo: Rick Kopstein

In an attempt to formalize the need for state lawyers to address well-documented mental health and substance abuse problems that riddle the profession, the New York City Bar Association is urging the creation of a required mental health/substance use CLE credit hour, on a biennial basis, for all New York attorneys.

New York would be following six other states that already have some type of "stand-alone" mental health/substance use continuing legal education requirement, according to a 9-page report issued Thursday by the bar association about its recommendation and why it is needed.

Moreover, in 2017 the American Bar Association amended its Model Rule for Minimum Continuing Legal Education to include one hour of mental health/substance-use disorder programming every three years, noted the city bar association.

In the report, which was penned by the bar association's lawyer assistance program and mental health law committees, the two committees wrote that the proposed one-hour CLE requirement "would go a long way toward providing much-needed information and support to legal professionals licensed to practice in the state, and to the institutions and organizations for which they work."

In addition, said both the report and an accompanying news release, Eileen Travis, the bar association's lawyer assistance program executive director, has noted an "exponential increase [in recent years] in the number of requests from law schools, law firms, and the judiciary for presentations and training sessions on these [mental health and substance use] issues."

Travis also has pointed out that "while substance use is a major concern that has garnered significant attention in recent years, even more lawyers suffer from mental health disorders (or substance use with co-occurring undiagnosed and/or untreated mental health disorders)—including stress, suicidal ideation, bipolar disorder or depression—and that such problems are sometimes more difficult to detect and address."

Indeed, the report reminds lawyer-readers, in multiple ways, of how well-established the problems of mental health and substance abuse are in the profession. For example, the report notes a previously "largely anecdotal and regional understanding and handling of these issues changed drastically in 2016, when a study commissioned by the American Bar Association, in conjunction with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation—'The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys'—was published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine."

"This data-driven statistical research report brought the widespread and pervasive problems of mental health, substance use, and lawyer well-being into sharp focus and has captured the public's attention," the report also said.

The city bar also notes that there are already in existence mental health and substance use CLE programs.