A way out for lawyers in despair.

• Author: Downs, Mayanne
• Position: President's Page

Chugging beer in high school was Michael J. Cohen's first way to get buzzed. College years in the '60s introduced him to the heroin experience that skulked into a bad habit in law school and plagued nearly six years of practicing criminal defense law in Massachusetts.

"I had gotten thrown out of the office, my wife left me, and I was out of money. I just didn't know what to do. I was under the impression if I picked up the phone and asked for help, I would lose my license," says 60-year-old Cohen.

Since 1995, Cohen has been executive director of Florida Lawyers Assistance, Inc.--a program created by the Florida Supreme Court to help attorneys impaired because of drugs, alcohol, or psychological concerns.

He wants to debunk the No. 1 misconception that asking for help will get lawyers in trouble.

"If somebody picks up the phone and calls us voluntarily or calls about a partner, it's completely confidential. FLA is not a Bar agency. It's not part of the Bar. It's not affiliated with the Bar. We work with the Bar in discipline cases," Cohen says.

The second misperception is that FLA is only for drug and alcohol abuse. When Cohen went to the Florida Supreme Court to meet the four new justices, he said many on the court were surprised to learn FLA handles mental health issues, with psychologist Scott Weinstein serving as FLA's full-time clinical director. For the past few years, about half of the calls to FLA deal with stress-related depression.

"We're seeing a lot more coming in with severe depression and some with suicidal thoughts because of the status of the economy," Cohen says. "What we are seeing that we've never seen before are mid-career lawyers without jobs and no prospects of getting jobs."

Waiting at the other end of the hotline is peer-to-peer help geared specifically for lawyers. That's important, Cohen says, because lawyers "are off the charts when it comes to narcissism, arrogance, and intellectualism."

"We're the only profession trained to use words to win our arguments. If my starting point is, 'I don't have a problem,' I'm going to use all the skills taught since day one in law school to convince a judge or police officer I don't have a problem. The ability to defend denial through use of words and trial skills is unique to lawyers," Cohen says.

"We are taught all the way through law school we are the ones who solve problems. It's incredibly difficult to get lawyers to understand they can't think or reason their way out of...