Law Times

Law Times • SePtember 29, 2014 Page 7 www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT Lots of help available for lawyers in crisis wo years ago, amid news of lawyer and law student sui- cides, I penned an article for Law Times that asked why lawyers insist upon torturing them- selves. As a lawyer assistance profes- sional, I was intent upon examining and elucidating why, despite the obvi- ous need in the legal community for assistance with issues such as depres- sion, anxiety, career stress, and addic- tion and the extensive services avail- able across Canada to help those who were suffering, lawyers were nonethe- less frustratingly hesitant to reach out. It's now two years later, and recently I learned of another law student suicide in Ontario. How can we prevent these needless tragedies from occurring? Everyone needs help at one time or another in life. We're not islands no matter how self-sufficient we legal types may think we should be. If we operate on the assumption that law students, lawyers, and paralegals are indeed hu- man beings and we know that these roles are particularly stressful and chal- lenging, we can acknowledge the need exists for organizations that can pro- vide help, support, and healing in times of difficulty. Across Canada, in addition to health-care professionals such as psy- chiatrists, psychologists, and social workers and organizations such as the Canadian Mental Health Association and countless hospital-based mental- health programs, there exists a network of lawyer assistance programs offering help geared directly to those in the legal community who need it. From the Lawyers As- sistance Program of Brit- ish Columbia to the Alberta Lawyers' Assistance Society and the Member Assistance Program in Ontario, lawyers across the country have ac- cess to helping resources for- mulated specifically for their unique needs and challenges. To illustrate the types of ser- vices that are available across the country, I can personally speak to the assistance available through the Ontario program. Lawyers, parale- gals, judges, law students, and immediate family members can access confidential psychotherapy for free. They have ac- cess to career and nutrition counselling, elder and childcare information, health promotion resources, and smoking ces- sation assistance to name just a few of the free services available. Much like many of the lawyer assistance programs in Cana- da, online information, courses, and vid- eos on various topics are available. And in addition, a peer volunteer program is in place in Ontario, as well as other juris- dictions such as British Columbia, that matches individuals in need of support with volunteer legal professionals with lived experience of addiction, mental- health, and career challenges who offer their compassion and kindness in times of need. When I stand at a booth at a legal conference touting these programs, I invariably hear the declaration: "I had no idea all of this was available." Many pe ople simply don't know that in their province or ter- ritory, help is readily accessi- ble to them. But not knowing that such services exist isn't the only barrier to accessing them. As I discussed in my article in 2012, even if there is awareness, there often re- mains a hesitance to access these services. For some, the caution relates to self-judg- ment and the feeling that as legal professionals, they should be strong enough to overcome their challenges on their own. They also often feel shame and stigma related to their particular issues, assuming they're the only ones in distress among their colleagues, all of whom seem so pulled together and successful. These indi- viduals feel they're failing and, as such, they often suffer needlessly in silence. I use the word needlessly because, to a mental-health professional like me who has worked in lawyer assistance for eight years, my frustration comes from knowing that all they need to do is visit a web site or call a 1-800 number to be- gin the process of healing and recovery. One final potential impediment to seeking assistance in the legal commu- nity is the very real concern many have about confidentiality. A lawyer whose life is unravelling due to addiction or depression needs to know whether the program will share that information with anyone, most especially whether it will wind up in the hands of their law society. The truth is that lawyer assistance programs wouldn't exist without strict adherence to the prin- ciple that the confidentiality of clients is sacrosanct. It's a core principle of this work and programs can't repeat that re- assurance enough. I can say that in my years of working in lawyer assistance, I've heard virtually every possible story you can imagine and not once have I called the regulator to share that infor- mation. So let's get the word out. No matter where you live in Canada, if you're a le- gal professional or a law student, free, confidential help and services designed specifically for you and your unique needs and challenges are available. And it's not just about distress. The purpose of these programs is to proactively pro- mote wellness in the community. A healthy and fulfilled bar serves the in- terests of the public, the profession, and the people who populate it, not to men- tion their families. So enough with stigma and suffer- ing in silence. Enough with law student suicides when help and recovery are a mouse click or a phone call away. Let the subject of lawyer assistance come out of the shadows of our profession and let's discuss and share it enthusiastically. LT Doron Gold is a registered social work- er who's also a former practising lawyer. He works with lawyers and law students in his role as a staff clinician and present- er with the Member Assistance Program as well as with members of the general public in his private psychotherapy prac- tice. He's available at dorongold.com. Lobbying proves more attractive to McGuinty than return to legal profession he news that former premier Dalton McGuinty had resur- faced as a political lobbyist working for one of Canada's most promising technology startups got the tongues wagging and the keyboards smoking around Queen's Park last week. While his successor, Premier Kath- leen Wynne, welcomed McGuinty back with open arms in a public show of re- demption following the Liberals' elec- tion victory this spring, her actions glossed over the deep resentment felt by many people over his tenure. It will be two years next month since McGuinty announced his resignation as premier and prorogued the legislature as dark clouds rumbled around the Liber- als' handling of the gas-plant cancella- tions and other issues such as the air- ambulance service, Ornge. That he has dared to come back as a political lobbyist has caused much con- sternation even though, to be fair, he has acted completely within the rules requir- ing a one-year cooling off period. With his gig as a senior fellow for the fall semester last year at Harvard Uni- versity's Weatherhead Center for Inter- national Affairs over, McGuinty needed to find something to do. Though he's a lawyer by trade and a politician by na- ture, his years in the legislature are the biggest asset on his resume at this point. It has been a while since he practised law. He won his first election to the leg- islature in 1990 after his father, the MPP for Ottawa South, died sud- denly. McGuinty ran and won probably on his name alone. As Toronto Star columnist Martin Regg Cohn pointed out recently, there aren't a lot of options these days with big law firms tightening their belts and plum patronage jobs as high commissioners over- seas in short supply. Blaming the government because his new role doesn't "pass the smell test," as one columnist put it, isn't really valid. Mc- Guinty is a free agent. McGuinty's new, and so far only, cli- ent is Desire2Learn Inc., a remarkable outfit out of the Waterloo, Ont., tech- nology triangle that's likely to become a stock-market darling during an initial public offering. Certainly, the political wrangling around the thought of McGuinty skulk- ing around the corridors of power and bending the ear of civil servants and ministers has overshadowed what a good news story Desire2Learn has to tell. I have no insight as to why Desire- 2Learn thinks it needs a lobbyist (the company ignored requests for com- ment). I do know, having written about it over the last couple of years, that it's about to break out. Founder John Baker is smart. He's maybe one of the smartest people in and around Waterloo, which is saying som ething given the number of startups and growing en- terprises in that area. Desire2Learn not only has a good product and gov- ernance, it also has access to experienced mentors from the business and technology community in the Waterloo triangle. So the likelihood is this wasn't a chance ap- pointment. It's not like Baker bumped into McGuinty at Starbucks and struck up a conversation. This was a calculated move, which means we should put the rhetoric aside and start watching carefully. Here's why. Baker founded Desire2Learn in 1999 while a student at the University of Wa- terloo. He was just 22 years old. While people often describe the company as a maker of educational software, that's like saying Samsung is an electronics maker. It's much more than that, of course. The company makes enterprise-level electronic learning solutions and devel- ops online learning management sys- tems. It has clients at more than 1,100 institutions in 20 countries around the world. From a business perspective, Desire- 2Learn also boasts a 98-per-cent client- retention rate with more than 10 million users. The company is still private and is maturing rapidly, attracting $85 million in Series B financing from heav y hitters like OMERS Ventures, the venture-capi- tal arm of the pension giant, just a couple of months ago. That's on top of funding in past years. Observers believe Desire2Learn is a good candidate for an initial public of- fering that would provide an exit and handsome return for all those early- stage venture-capital investors. If that happens, it will be one of a handful of Canadian technology startups, such as Shopify, that are about to take centre stage. And here's the point of all this: Mc- Guinty isn't just there to beef up the company's profile. Who he's going to be talking to and when those conversations start are going to be of deep interest. Clearly, Desire2Learn is looking to sell its products but curiously it already counts all publicly funded Ontario school boards as customers. So where's the upside? Is it targeting colleges and universities? It has at least four colleges on its books and a dozen or more univer- sities. McGuinty is a high-profile asset to Desire2Learn and has piqued a lot of observers' curiosity as to where its story will go next. LT Ian Harvey has been a journalist for more than 35 years writing about a diverse range of issues including legal and political affairs. His e-mail address is ianharvey@ rogers.com. T The Lawyer Therapist Doron Gold Queen's Park Ian Harvey T

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