The Lawyers Assistance Program was established by the Law Society of New South Wales in April 2001 under the Associations Incorporation Act 1984 . It was established because of the concerns of the Law Society, over many years, at the personal and practice difficulties experienced by a number of solicitors. These difficulties came to light through the Society’s Professional Standards Department and Trust Account Inspectors as well as the Legal Services Commissioner and LawCover.
LawCover claims and Professional Standards Department reports indicated that solicitors were facing personal difficulties such as depression, alcohol dependency, gambling, stress, serious illness, or the serious illness of a family member. Some were also facing difficulties within their practices, often due to personal problems.
Common indicators for LawCover that a solicitor was suffering a physical or psychological breakdown included failure to respond to clients’ enquiries, excessive delays in handling matters and a growing isolation from colleagues in the firm, whilst some of the explanations given by solicitors appearing before the Legal Services Tribunal included on-going partnership disputes, personal financial problems, family problems, difficulty in managing the demands of a sole practice, depression and gambling addiction.
The Law Society's LawCare counselling service has been able to help many practitioners with personal and emotional problems, but unfortunately solicitors experiencing such difficulties often failed to seek help or guidance by self referring. The result for themselves, their families, partners and often their clients could have been devastating. Complaints to the Legal Services Commissioner or the Law Society, and claims on LawCover were often the outcome.
The Society established a Taskforce in 1999 to consider what it could do to assist practitioners in difficulty. Eighteen months later, after extensive research, the taskforce submitted a report to the Law Society’s Council which approved its recommendation to establish a new service to help solicitors in difficulty with advice and assistance provided by a separate, incorporated association. The new service is known as the Lawyers Assistance Program.