A lawyer assistance program (LAP) is a state-level support service for lawyers dealing with alcohol or substance use, mental health or stress concerns.
Is using one confidential from the bar?
That answer is set program by program and state by state — New York, for one, shields communications with its lawyer assistance committee by statute.
Here is what LAPs offer, who can use them, and what to confirm before you call.
What do LAPs offer?
The name is the definition: a lawyer assistance program helps lawyers with drinking, drug, mental health or stress problems.
These are state-level programs — our research looked at California's and New York's — and if a search under "lawyer assistance program" comes up empty, try the variant phrasings "attorney assistance program" or "judges and lawyers assistance program" before concluding your state has none.
The scale of these problems in the profession is documented: a 2016 peer-reviewed survey by Krill, Johnson and Albert, published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, studied 12,825 licensed, employed U.S. attorneys and found 20.6% screening positive for hazardous or harmful drinking, with 28%, 19% and 23% reporting symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress.
The study is now about a decade old — a snapshot of the profession at the time, not a live measurement — and our guide to lawyer mental health covers it in depth.
What the services look like in practice, our research verified in one state: California's Lawyer Assistance Program offers free presentations, short-term counseling — up to two free one-on-one sessions with a therapist — and support groups, and it serves active, inactive and disbarred attorneys, law students and bar applicants.
That is the one program whose services we verified.
We verified no other state's service list, so read your own program's list rather than assuming California's package travels.
Is using a LAP confidential from the bar?
Short answer: our research found no single national rule to quote, so be skeptical of any page that hands you one.
What protection exists comes from two places: the program's own confidentiality practices and, where a state has legislated, its law.
Our research verified exactly one statutory example, in New York, and nothing that would let us generalize it.
The example: New York's Judiciary Law § 499 makes communications with a bar-sponsored lawyer assistance committee privileged on the same basis as attorney-client communications, and only the person who gave the information can waive that privilege.
That is New York's statute.
It tells you what one legislature did — not what your state's program promises or what your state's rules provide.
The practical version of the answer is a question you can ask before you disclose anything: how does this program handle confidentiality — what it records, what it shares, and with whom.
While you ask, keep two systems separate in your head.
A LAP's function is help.
Discipline is administered by your state's disciplinary authority, and whether — and how — information moves between the two is precisely what to confirm with the program and, if the question ever becomes concrete, the bar.
Confidentiality is state-specific
Who can use them (students, staff, judges)?
Attorneys are the group the programs are named for, at every stage of a career — including the early ones.
The same 2016 survey found younger attorneys and those newer to practice had higher rates of problem drinking, so the newer lawyer has as much reason to know where the program is as the senior one.
Beyond attorneys, our research verified only one program's eligibility answer.
California's, the program above, serves active, inactive and disbarred attorneys, law students and bar applicants — a usefully wide answer from one state.
Whether your state's program serves students or bar applicants is its own answer to look up, not an assumption to carry over.
For judges and legal staff — paralegals, legal assistants, secretaries — our research verified no state-by-state eligibility list.
If a program's name includes judges — the "judges and lawyers assistance program" phrasing — a name is still not eligibility: ask the program who it serves.
And if you are legal staff whose state program does not cover you, the ordinary routes — your doctor, a licensed mental health professional — do not require a law license.
How to contact your state LAP
Finding your state's program is a search, not a process: try "lawyer assistance program" plus your state's name, and if that misses, try the judges-and-lawyers variant or start from your state bar's website — California's program sits on the State Bar's site — and look for it among the member or practice-resources pages.
Before you say anything you would want kept private, put the confidentiality questions from the last section to the program directly — who runs it, what it records, what it shares and with whom.
You can ask all of that without disclosing a single thing about yourself.
In crisis right now
Where to find attorney jobs
Sometimes getting help and reshaping the career are one decision — a smaller firm, a different practice area, a setting with saner hours.
Our board lists open attorney jobs, and our attorney careers guide maps the directions a law license can take you.
This page is career information, not legal or medical advice. Confidentiality and discipline questions belong with your state's lawyer assistance program and your state bar; health questions belong with a qualified professional.