Recent ABA Resolutions
The American Bar Association (ABA) has adopted two recent resolutions emphasizing the need to address lawyer well-being and the high rates of substance use disorder (SUD) in the legal profession.
ABA Resolution 105 was adopted in February 2018. creating the ABA Well-Being Campaign and setting forth the Seven Point Framework for legal employers to adopt and prioritize for attorneys and staff to improve their physical, mental, and emotional well-being, and to implement measures to reduce and confront SUD.
In February 2021, the ABA adopted Resolution 300A, placing the onus on federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal courts, bar associations, legal employers, and law schools to develop, assemble, disseminate, promote, and collaborate to make resources accessible that advance well-being in the entire legal profession, including but not limited to, educational programming, mental health providers, screening, employee assistance programs, referrals to community support groups and state and local lawyer assistance programs.
Both of these resolutions recognize the critical role of the legal employer in addressing the well-being and SUD crises facing the profession. Ethical compliance also requires that individual attorneys within legal services organizations that have managerial authority - Partners, shareholders, managers, supervisory attorneys, and other similarly situated lawyers, implement measures to provide reasonable assurance that their colleagues are not practicing while impaired by SUD. See ABA Formal Opinion 03-429 concerning lawyer impairment.
Read ABA Resolution 105, and 300A.