Articles | NC LAP

“Oh No!” Moments

By Robynn Moraites, Cathy Killian, Nicki Ellington and Candace Hoffman Once upon a time, 40+ years ago, a lawyer made a mistake on a legal matter and had a big…

The Perils of Perfectionism: Why Lawyers Need To Rethink Their “Badge of Honor”

By Patrick Krill, Jordana Confino, and Jens Näsström In the high-stakes world of law, perfectionism is often celebrated as a virtue — a driving force behind meticulous briefs, airtight arguments,…

The Healing Power of Our Stories

By Reita Pendry The Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP), through its professional staff and a large network of volunteers, provides free confidential assistance to lawyers, judges, and law students in addressing…

Medicating Away Someone Else’s Crazy

By Anonymous To be fair, it wasn’t good news. But the partner was practically hyperventilating. By his account, the news that we’d just received would destroy our client’s case, embarrass…

Hurricane Helene – A Wide Wind Field

By Robynn Moraites and Cathy Killian In the context of hurricanes, a “wind field” refers to the spatial distribution of winds around the eye of the storm. Think of it…

Thinking like a lawyer: gold standard or occupational hazard?

By: Cathy Killian and Candace Hoffman The Lawyer Assistance Program is uniquely positioned at a crossroads of two very different professions: lawyering and mental health counseling. The LAP is staffed…

Connecting the Dots

The ABA Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being (“Task Force”) was created in 2017 in response to the findings of the 2016 ABA Hazelden Study documenting the prevalence of impairment in…

Retiring Gratefully and (Fairly) Gracefully

Allow me to jump to the end and tell you retirement from private practice is good, enjoyable and filled with as much as I choose. Looking back, I see how…

Hidden in Plain Sight

When I think back and remember the latter part of my active alcoholism and its impact on my family, more than anything else, I think of the extraordinary amount of…

A PSA for Our Times: Adderall and Delta-8

By Robynn Moraites and Harold Hong, MD Consider this article a public service announcement based on the emergence of an alarming trend we’re seeing at the Lawyer Assistance Program: an…

Roadmap to Healing

We at the Lawyer Assistance Program write and talk about the fight/flight/freeze response in law practice all the time. As a result, many lawyers across the state have come to…

You Are Not Alone

NCLAP publishes a quarterly e-newsletter, Sidebar. LAP volunteers regularly submit articles for Sidebar around recovery themes or slogans. LAP volunteers understand, as few others can, the sense of loneliness and…