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In a particularly contested election cycle that revealed many ways in which our country appears divided, the words of the U.S. surgeon general ring true from his 2023 Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community: “social connection … can predict better physical and mental health outcomes and ease stress.”
What matters is that our legal community thrives on the connections we have with our clients and with each other, especially when a colleague needs us. The JLAP Treatment Fund offers financial help to our colleagues by covering urgently needed mental health treatment. And, yes, the JLAP Treatment Fund needs your donation now.
Clients of the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program, or JLAP qualify for help from the treatment fund when their health insurance does not cover, or does not adequately cover, the mental health treatment they need.
The JLAP Treatment Fund is administered by the Indiana Bar Foundation and has been in place for about 20 years. It has been funded by donations from attorneys and judges.
Due to the destigmatization of mental health needs — especially the public discussions of consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health in the past five years — the number of attorneys and judges seeking mental health treatment has increased. So has the demand on the JLAP Treatment Fund.
Our social connection motivates us to look out for our colleagues when they need us and to ensure that they get the help they need. If it were not for that connection, many of JLAP’s clients would not have sought help before mental health issues spiraled out of control and devastated their personal and professional lives.
If it weren’t for the JLAP Treatment Fund, some who sought help would not have been able to finance their treatment. JLAP clients give as a way to pay forward. JLAP Committee members and JLAP’s 300 volunteers donate because they connect through personal stories of clients. Former Indiana State Bar Association presidents donate because their friends are involved with the JLAP Committee.
When I contacted two new donors to ask them why they made gifts to the JLAP Treatment Fund, it became clear that their motivations are rooted in social connection.
This fall the JLAP Treatment Fund received a substantial gift from the Hancock County Bar Association. Its president, Michael Frischkorn, explains why. The Hancock County Bar Association frequently decides to make donations on behalf of its members to causes that affect lawyers and their clients. The Hancock County Bar Association and its members identify donations that can make an impact on their community and focus especially on covering expenses that otherwise are not covered by subsidies, grants, or insurance.
In the past, the Hancock County Bar Association made donations to help clients in drug court, mental health court, and veterans court.
When members of the Hancock County Bar Association recently attended the monthly bar association CLE lunch and invited JLAP to give a presentation, they realized that a gift to the JLAP Treatment Fund would have an impact on the lives and careers of colleagues.
The Hancock County lawyers and judges have experienced, as a group and individually, what devastation untreated mental health issues can cause to the personal lives and careers of their colleagues.
Some of the bar association members also see the same in their daily practice and the lives of clients. They recognize and acknowledge that the cost of health insurance premiums is prohibitive to some attorneys, and if their spouse does not have health insurance through their employment, they have to simply do without.
As Frischkorn put it: “We as lawyers and judges are built to help out people and solve their problems. If we see a need, it is an easy decision to make a gift, and we hope that the Hancock County Bar Association’s gift will inspire members to also make an individual gift.”
Johnathon ‘Yogi’ Snider, an associate at Dinsmore & Shohl LLP in Indianapolis, found JLAP in a different way.
Yogi felt that the effects of isolation due to Covid-19 on his life and career caused anxiety. He “let it fester,” he says, but eventually sought help and successfully overcame this challenge.
Yogi learned early what other lawyers wrestle with: if one has a problem, one should not wait to seek help; not even as a lawyer. He openly talks about this experience because he believes these conversations may help others.
A soccer player in college, he says he focuses on the team first. That translates into his concern about the well-being of colleagues, clients, and family members.
He learned about JLAP when trying to help a friend who struggled with mental health issues. Yogi’s own experience prepared him to help out. Yogi’s gift to the JLAP Treatment Fund came about when he received this year’s Annual Difference Maker Award in Memory of Alice J. Neeley.
The award honors the Dinsmore & Shohl associate who makes a difference based on the qualities exemplified by Alice Neeley, of which social connection is the binding factor. Apart from being a good lawyer, balancing time at work and time at home, and having an ability to dedicate oneself to the firm, the practice of law, and the clients, the recipient is also required to “make a genuine effort to know personally others in the firm of every level and be concerned for their well-being.” With the award comes a cash donation to a non-profit of the recipient’s choice. Yogi Snider selected the JLAP Treatment Fund for this honor.
These two donations, and the attorneys and judges behind them, their stories of connecting with colleagues, and perhaps your own connection with colleagues who struggle with mental health issues will, I hope, inspire you too to answer the JLAP Treatment Fund’s call to action. You can make a donation through the Indiana State Bar Foundation by designating your gift to the JLAP Treatment Fund.•
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Inge Van der Cruysse is past chair of the JLAP Committee and a retired lecturer at the IU Maurer School of Law. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
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