Law And More

AMA Classifies Obesity as Disease: Lawyers could develop niche practice in rights for the obese

The implications for lawyers are huge.  Some could develop a niche practice in fighting for the rights of the obese in insurance-reimbursement claims, special accommodations in everywhere from the workplace to transportation (think the size of plane seats), and applications for disability.  

As THE NEW YORK TIMES reports, the influential American Medical Association has classified obesity as a disease.   When it also designated alcoholism as a disease decades ago, much changed.   Insurance companies had to reimburse those now-standard 28-day rehabs. Courts had to consider mitigating circumstances in how to deal with alcohol related crimes like drunk driving, and employers could be on the hook for putting the active alcoholics on disability, instead of just on the street.

Much will have to be decided legally about obesity.  This is very good news for lawyers searching for a specialized practice. 

"Academic Doping" - We know that continues into working in law firms

NEW YORK Magazine reports that New York senator Chuck Schumer is urging students against "academic doping."  Good luck, Chuck.  About 35% of students use Adderall and Ritalin to give them the edge for studying.  We know that pattern doesn't end with undergraduate graduation.  It's said that Adderall and newer versions of stimulants are not uncommon in law firms.  And with good reason.  The all-nighter is standard.

That use of stimulants could be a factor in the above-average rate of suicides among lawyers.  In Kentucky there has been an epidemic of suicides in the past few years. The problem with uppers, as well as other kinds of substance abuse, is that they prevent the professional from learning to cope with life.  There's no learning curve.  Emotionally, lawyers could be emotionally stuck back in the year they started using uppers in college.

John Galliano: Global society doesn't forgive addictions

Science knows so little about addiction.  So, those with them should be given a free pass, right.  Humane judges sometimes do that with allowing a drunk driver to opt for rehab instead of jail. But, overall, as Ingrid Sischy's article on John Galliano in VANITY FAIR explains, global society is very unforgiving of the addict. 

About two years ago, Galliano, once a hot Dior designer, had a booze/drug induced rant that was anti-Jewish.  It was caught on video and went viral.  Like so many, he lost his job, his friends, and maybe his ability to ever play in big-time sandboxes again.  I have a hunch that this article is an attempt at reputation restoration.  But, as lawyers like to say in court, the bell has been rung.  What has been said can't be unsaid.  If he has any kind of comeback, that hate speech will be always factored into his brand.

Galliano is hardly unique.  Daily "in the rooms" of 12-step programs there are chronicles of losses that will never be made whole.  It's irrelevant that the U.S. government classifies alcoholism as a disease.  The bell has been rung.  Last evening a man filled up with tears as he delivered his talk.  Throughout the years he had lost his first marriage, a job of 35 years, and his health.  He had clinically died and was brought back with electrical charges.  In a sense all he has now is "working the program."  Not that is trivial in terms of fellowship.  But the institutions of society, including the legal system, don't do enough to help him, now that he has sustained sobriety, to get his arms around a more normal life.  

Sobered-Up Lawyers: Why AA preaches that geographics don't work

"In the rooms" of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), lawyers hear repeatedly that a "geographic" doesn't work.  Most of time that geographic involves professional opportunity.  The lawyer specializing in intellectual property from a mid-sized law firm in the midwest takes a lateral to a large firm in California.  At first he's euphoric.  Soon enough he's miserable, again. Actually, he could be worse off emotionally than before the change. The intensity of suffering could trigger relapse back into drinking.

Psychology professor at the University of California at Riverside Sonya Lyubomirsky explains why these grabs for a better life don't pan out.  It's all in her new book "The Myths of Happines: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't - What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does." 

In essence, humans are wired for a certain baseline in happiness.  After the positive change, we tend to return to that baseline.  The problem is, though, that simultaneously our expectations on what we are entitled to are raised.  Therefore, the new position, despite its status, intellectual stimulation, and lucrative pay, serves to create a craving for more and more of that.  The lawyer could then start searching for what he perceives as a better opportunity.

How to stop that cycle?  Lyubomirsky recommends what will sound familiar to those "in the rooms." That's an attitude change.  For example, mentally re-experience what your professional life used to be and develop an attitude of gratitude.  Sure, you can go after better professional opportunities. But you do it this time with a grateful heart for what you already have.

 

Judah Blumenthal: His "crime" interpreted, treated as mental illness

It's a start.  Judah Blumenthal's bizarre activities inside Columbia University's St. Paul's Church in 2009 were interpreted as "mental illness." 

Thanks to his lawyer Preston Leschins, reports the NEW YORK POST, his defacement of church property resulted in treatment.  Blumenthal also made his "amends" in the form of 100 hours of community service and $6,000 restitution. 

Most others who are mentally ill and get caught up in the legal system aren't as fortunate.  They wind up in prison, usually without sophisticated treatment.  Why don't both the legal and medical communities admit how little they really know about mental illness and allow for experiments as has taken place with the Blumenthal case.

Recently a former college classmate - Class of '67 - who retired from the mental-health profession admitted to me that so little is known about what causes mental illness and what can relieve the symtoms as well as the extreme suffering.  I, who have battled clinical depression since I was 11, asked her when she realized it.  It was recent, she said.  Her daughter had become mentally ill.  Her daughter is still mentally ill.

Malpractice Lawsuits Are Sexy: But good care can be compelling legal topic

As an ambitious legal blogger, I know that describing a malpractice medical suit will get me traffic.  That entertains in two ways.  One is showcasing alleged human (or robotic) error.  The other pull force is the cheering for the alleged victim and wishing them a great damage award.

But, after so many national tragedies, there is a growing audience for stories about caring.  First, the lack of caring lead-in. When I got on Medicare I was thrilled. But not for long.  I called medical office after medical office in the New Haven, Connecticut metro area.  The only one which "was taking new patients" was where I would never be seen by a doctor in two years.  Those who did examine and "counsel" me were smug know-it-alls, including smirks.  Medicine a la 1950s.

Then, I checked out the Hartford Metro area, only an hour's ride away.  The Hartford Healthcare Medical Group welcomed me into the system.  I was even going to be seen by a doctor - Judy Chiu.  The medical director is Dr. Spencer Erman. 

Shock.  Dr. Chiu listened.  She provided research to back up my contention that I might not genetically take after the side of my family killed off young by cancer.  After all, here I was in my late 60s, fat but quite healthy.  Dr. Chiu also presented options to me for traditional tests and treatment.  Another shock.  The eating program we discussed is knocking off some of the weight.  Almost unbearable lightness of being.  I could be here blogging at age 150, and model-skinny.

Let's help our healthcare providers through these changing times in medicine.  Maybe lawyers, both plaintiff and defense, can educate them how to be self-protective when it comes to the possibility of malpractice suits.  Caring might be the most important best practice.

Jodi Arias: Is asking for death penalty tactic to be ruled too crazy to be put to death?

After guilty in the first degree was announced defendant Jodi Arias requested the death penalty. 

That's what sensationalist publication the NEW YORK POST reports. And that could just be the tactic she uses to save her life. Lawyers can prove that she's too crazy to be put to death by the state.  After all, she explains her desire to die as the wish not to stay in one place (prison) too long.  That doesn't sound sane since human beings are wired for survival.  And, hey, traditional prison life isn't the worst way to spend the rest of one's life. It sure beats the Cleveland House of Horrors where the three missing women had spent a decade.

What follows this verdict and penalty ruling could be a lot more interesting legally than the high-profile trial itself.

Vermont: End-of-life bill for terminally ill could become law

In Vermont, S. 77, in some version, reports the BURLINGTON FREE PRESS,  could pass the House, go to the Senate, and then be signed into law by the governor. 

That will allow, with a number of provisions, those with six months to live to seek the assistance of medical personnel to die.  Like the states of Oregon and Washington, end-of-life measures would be legal and provide a dignified end to suffering.  There had been cases in which the terminally ill resorted to violent means such as shooting themselves to end the pain.

In Vermont a similar bill was crushed in 2007.

Johnny Edwards: Family sues Harvard University after student's suicide

The student health clinics in higher education are probably frozen in panic.  The family of suicide victim Johnny Edwards has, reports THE NEW YORK TIMES, sued Harvard University for allowing their son to be maintained on a combination of four medications which, together, can increase the risk of suicide.  They were Adderall for ADHD, Prozac and Wellbrutin for clinical depression, and Accutane for acne.

This particular lawsuit, which will be tried February 2014 in Massachusetts Superior Court, may not be the strongest one to test out prescription procedures in university health centers.  The family had submitted complaints to various state agencies about this matter and all had been dismissed.  However, the public relations surrounding the litigation has already brought to the surface the widespread practice of providing legal medications to students as way of a solution for what they are encountering in that phase of their education and lives.  Would a few hours a week with a counselor or clergy been more effective and not carried any of the side effects associated with medications?

This questioning could extend to the regular citizens out here who have been prescribed Adderall.  Last night at a 12-step meeting in central Connecticut a distraught member revealed his calamity after taking Adderall.  He contended he was so wired that he drank a lot of alcohol, headed to where he needed to be riding his bike since his wife wouldn't allow him to drive the car, had an accident, and wound up in Yale Emergency Room.  Had he not been Adderall, would he not have resumed drinking alcohol? The man is in his 50s, with no previous history or ADHD.

Rehab: Fairy tale of drunken prince/princess who lives happily ever after

The fairy tale in America is that addiction, ranging from alcohol to food, can be cured through the seemingly progressive but expensive institution of "going to rehab." Pack the prince/princess or oneself off to those 28-day stays and the light will be turned on.  The once-addicted will live happily ever after. The monsters of the mind have been slayed.

That's the mythology.  The reality is presented in the book "Inside Rehab" by Anne M. Fletcher.  The author previously published "Sober For Good."  Her research for this book included staying in more than 10 rehabs.

Essentially, "going to rehab" means bcoming a consumer of a largely unregulated industry whose methodologies are unproven and success rate frequently not measured.  Yet since science and society know so little about the causes and "cures" for the chronic disease of addiction, the industry continues to thrive.  That could be easily changed if Congress, insurance companies, and employers demand transparency about approaches and outcomes.

One theme in "Inside Rehab" is the high relapse rate of rehab alumni, although each stay might cost from $28,000 to $40,000.  Often alumni return to the same rehab several times.  Those of us in 12-step programs, which cost nothing but also have no hard data on outcomes, hear constantly tales of those multiple stays, without results, that is long-term sobriety or being free from all addictive substances.  The tragedy of that is the illusion of help. 

Since lawyers have a higher than average rate of addiction they might, through their trade associations, push to get some answers about this approach which might have promised them and their colleagues a second chance and hasn't yet delivered.