D. Todd Smith, founder and managing partner of Austin's Smith Law Group.

In the Austin legal community, lawyer well-being isn't a “generic problem” in the news. It's an issue that's hit attorneys personally, which is why new Austin Bar Association president D. Todd Smith is launching a well-being initiative during his 2019-2020 term.

To realize his vision, the Austin Bar is recruiting members for a new lawyer well-being committee that will develop the initiative and launch programs and events this fall, said Smith, founder and managing partner of Smith Law Group in Austin.

Lawyers nationwide struggle with mental health and substance abuse. A 2016 study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine found that 21% of licensed, employed attorneys qualify as problem drinkers, 28% struggle with depression, and 19% have anxiety symptoms.

Texas Lawyer spoke with Smith to learn about his mission, and get his thoughts on how the program could help Austin attorneys. Here are his answers, edited for length and clarity.

What are the reasons you chose to focus your term on lawyer well-being?

It seemed like we couldn't pick up the newspaper for quite a period there without reading about, on the national level, a lawyer who wound up dying because of suicide or consequences of addiction. It happens in Austin, too. Over the last several years, we've lost—I've not counted—but we've lost several lawyers to suicide and, more recently, to an addiction issue. Most lawyers in Austin know someone at least by the second degree of separation who has been affected by the untimely death of a lawyer because of these issues. They are silent killers.

I'd like to learn about the components of your well-being initiative. What are you planning?

We're going to start with education. We're going to put on luncheon programs or, more typically, continuing legal education programming focused specifically on wellness issues. We will tap into resources like the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program to help us provide programming. One person who is going to wind up on our committee is Chris Ritter, the director of the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program. He's doing a lot with local bars right now.

We also want to do a better job of connecting lawyers in the community. You don't want to just interface with people when you sit on the other side of the table from them. It's better to get to know other lawyers as human beings. It helps intervention possibilities.

What steps will your initiative take to try to break the stigma of an attorney seeking help for mental health or substance abuse issues?

One way is you have to find people who have the courage to speak up about their own issues. Brian Cuban up in Dallas is a great example of that. He lays it all out there and has done a great job being someone who will go out and talk about his own struggle in the hope of other people doing better.

Let's get it out in the open. I'll tell you, that is the hardest thing to do. You have to find someone who is willing to lead in a way that makes themselves a little vulnerable—really, very vulnerable. It takes a lot of courage to do that. I expect that to come out in some of our programming.

Related story:

Minds Over Matters: An Examination of Mental Health in the Legal Profession