I Think My Boss Is A Cocaine Addict. Now What?

Alex writes:

As we all can attest, working as a first-year associate is hard enough. Doing so when your direct supervisor is an addict was an experience so difficult and consuming, I felt as if I had burnt out before my career even began.

My boss’s behavior was unpredictable not simply from day-to-day, but from hour-to-hour. When I was buzzed over the interoffice intercom, my he would scream so loudly that everybody, including support staff and lawyers in the rented offices near us, could hear every word.

The first time this happened to me was over a miscommunication for responses to a discovery request. I’ll never forget the feeling of total incompetence after I was called every name under the sun, my intelligence and aptitude mocked.

Alex’s first thought was that she needed to up her game.  As a newly licensed lawyer, the time for making mistakes was over. It had not yet occurred to her that substance use might be at play. She says:

Not long after he had finished berating me, I was jolted back to reality by the beep of the intercom. It was my boss again asking me to eat lunch with him like nothing had happened. In a matter of 20 minutes, he had gone from verbally abusive to buying my lunch and talking my ear off for the following 45 minutes, cracking jokes and laughing the entire time.

This one incident became indicative of the behavior that Alex came to expect from her boss.  She had gotten so accustomed to it that her stress levels went through the roof. She began taking psychiatric medication to focus and get work done quickly and a separate medication to calm her down.

Alex says, “In addition to these sudden verbal onslaughts, my boss would disappear every day for many hours at a time. Sometimes he would return to the office and other times he wouldn’t.”

This made work even more stressful for Alex.  She realized that she was not going to be able to run her pleadings, motions, or briefs by a superior before filing. Any questions she had, she was forced to figure herself the vast majority of the time. She says, “Each time I was in front of a judge I would silently pray that I’d gotten the law right and that I wasn’t humiliating myself.”

As is often the case with addiction, secrets and truth eventually collide.

Alex says:

One day I walked into my boss’s office during an afternoon to grab a file. I saw he was sitting at the conference table leaned over the glass conference table with a piece of a straw and unsuccessfully trying to shove what he could in his pocket while indiscreetly wiping the table.  I have been to enough parties to know what was going on. He was snorting a few lines of cocaine to start off the afternoon. Instinctively, I whipped out my iPhone and flipped through my apps in a failed attempt to act like I hadn’t seen (or heard) a thing. When he handed me the file, my overeager “thanks! “came out so loudly and high pitched as I bolted from the room, I was certain that he was aware that saw him snorting.

From this point forward, Alex felt almost a relief in knowing that there was finally an explanation to her boss’s often erratic behavior. She says:

When I told a fellow associate the next day, all he told me was that he was surprised it took me so long to figure out. He had been at the firm for a year before I joined and he apparently had memorized our boss’s coke schedule. He began to give me a heads up on when to approach our boss and when to stay clear based solely around this clandestine, but very real, cocaine schedule.

Alex finally quit. She says:

At first I found myself jaded with the entire profession. For wanting to be a lawyer for as long as I could remember, I was now disgusted and wanted to separate myself entirely from it. I felt that the most important thing to me was that I needed to rebuild my self-esteem and my mental health from the ground up again.  Working for a cocaine addict in such a small environment that left me a product of his coke-fueled moods, or worse, his feelings of withdrawal, damaged my self-worth and confidence that I once had in my skills as an attorney.

Today, Alex is in a new city with a new job. She has rediscovered her love of practicing law. She says:

My experience out of law school taught me that there is absolutely no job that is worth allowing yourself to be mistreated to the point where your health suffers. I also was able to see firsthand how selfish the disease of addiction can be. I never did address my former boss about his addiction. I knew he was going through a messy divorce over it and I didn’t want to pile on, but his problem affected me profoundly. And while I chose to put physical distance between myself and my old job in order to move on, I wish I was aware of resources and outreach at the time that could have helped me before my experience got to be intolerable.

Alex’s story brought back a lot of memories for me. Being of-counsel to my firm, I did not have anyone reporting to me, but her description of her boss’s cocaine use rang the “I’ve been there” bell in terms of the behaviors I engaged in while actively addicted to the evil white powder.

The bottom line is that whether it’s blow, booze, or another substance, there are resources and ethical obligations that need to be considered in working for an addicted lawyer.  Of course, one option is just to move on as Alex did and many do, but you may be in situation where that is not an option.  So what to do?

Bree Buchanan, the Director of the Texas Lawyer’s Assistance Program (TLAP) says, “I would encourage the associate to make the confidential call to TLAP to talk about a strategy to help them not only comply with duties under the disciplinary rules, but to also see if there is something they or TLAP can do to provide assistance to the addicted lawyer. I would also spend some time supporting the associate in what is undoubtedly an incredibly stressful time. If preferred, the associate could call us anonymously.”

As to the ethical issues involved, I reached out to attorney and author, Brian Tannebaum. Brian makes his living advising and defending lawyers called before the bar and has seen addiction issues play out many times.

Brian says:

When an associate learns a partner at the firm is impaired, several considerations come in to play. Outside the Rules, is the reality that the associate will fear retaliation if the conduct is reported. The first question is “does it need to be reported?”, and to answer that, the question is “what is the conduct?”

If the conduct is a consistent closed-door 3 p.m. glass of scotch that then leads to the partner barking orders to other lawyers and staff, my recommendation is to first evaluate whether your continued employment at that firm is in your best interest. If not, be honest. Tell the partner that you can no longer work under this environment. Will that lead to a conversation about the drinking? Likely not, but if it does, you may have an opportunity to help the lawyer — by discussing a lawyer assistance program or at a minimum an agreement to cease the drinking in the office.

If the conduct is illegal — such as witnessing the use of illegal drugs, or finding drugs in the partner’s office, it’s time to report. Let’s be honest — this isn’t easy. You’re not a cop, you’re a lawyer, but you have obligations under your state Bar’s Rules. If you know of another lawyer’s violation of the Rules, you can be liable for not reporting that to the Bar. While these types of Bar discipline cases are rare, they do occur.

So what do you do? First, consider your relationship with the partner. If it’s good, and I mean very good, again, try to have a conversation. But wait, is that conversation privileged? No, because the partner has not contacted you for the purpose of seeking legal advice. Second, if the relationship is not good, report it to another partner, and document the conversation. If nothing is done — like self-reporting by the partner, seek outside counsel to determine your reporting requirements.

If the conduct finds you answering for missed court appearances or other lack of diligence in representing clients, remember, once the client complains to the state Bar, you may wind up having to answer as to your knowledge of the impairment. Don’t spend your young career apologizing to clients for another lawyer’s misconduct.

As an associate witnessing a partner’s impairment, you have a few paths to take: one, leave, two, help, and three, make sure you don’t wind up answering for you.

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Brian Cuban (@bcuban) is The Addicted Lawyer. Brian is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, The Addicted Lawyer: Tales Of The Bar, Booze, Blow & Redemption (affiliate link). A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, he somehow made it through as an alcoholic then added cocaine to his résumé as a practicing attorney. He went into recovery April 8, 2007. He left the practice of law and now writes and speaks on recovery topics, not only for the legal profession, but on recovery in general. He can be reached at [email protected].