Biglaw Associate With ALS Is In Race Against Time To Find A Cure

He doesn't know how much time he has left, but he wants to make it matter.

Brian S. Wallach (Photo via Skadden Arps)

You wake up one day in November of 2017 only to find that you’re having trouble holding a pen. You’ve also noticed some unfamiliar muscle movements in your arms. You’re only 37 years old, so you convince yourself that you must be really, really tired — exhausted, even.

After all, you’re an assistant U.S. attorney, and on top of all of your government work, you’ve got a one-year-old at home and another child on the way. Then come the hacking coughs, coughs so bad that your wife, newborn in tow, implores you to see a doctor. You do, and after a series of trips to doctors, you receive the most startling news of your life.

You might have ALS. You might have only six months left to live.

This is exactly what happened to Brian Wallach, an associate at Skadden Arps, and he says he was completely unprepared for the news. “Ice Bucket Challenge. Not good. Lou Gehrig,” were the first things that crossed his mind when a neurologist told him that he should prepare for an ALS diagnosis. In February 2018, his ALS diagnosis was confirmed. Just three months later, Wallach returned to Skadden Arps, the firm where he started his career, and he was welcomed back by the firm with open arms, despite his diagnosis. Although the average life expectancy for ALS is about two to five years, Wallach is doing more than simply tending to his own medical ailments. He and his wife, Sandra Abrevaya, recently launched I Am ALS, and they hope to raise $100 million of new funding to find a cure within three years.

The Chicago Tribune has a wonderful piece about Wallach’s fundraising efforts:

Starting last spring, Wallach flew around the country — to Boston, Seattle, New Orleans — meeting with organizations and researchers and doctors and patients and caregivers. He asked them how progress toward a cure could quicken. He asked, if you had an extra $1 million, what could you do?

He wanted to understand the landscape of this disease and its future, and he wanted to know how he could help. He and Abrevaya agreed that if they were to try to do something, it must not replicate what was already out there; it should efficiently, quickly bolster existing efforts.

“At the end of the day, this is a race,” Abrevaya said. “All we care about is what’s going on, why isn’t this working faster and better, and what is needed to help it work faster and better.”

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According to a poll commissioned by Wallach and Abrevaya, more than 60 percent of Americans know little to nothing about ALS, and even more (85 percent) don’t know that the average lifespan of a person who has been diagnosed with ALS is less than five years. This is exactly what Wallach hopes he can change before his time is up.

“I think the word ‘hope’ is tossed around a lot. And if hope means that sort of naive belief that things are going to be OK, that’s not what I mean by hope. Hope means that you can actually have the power to help make your future better,” Wallach said. “Will it benefit me? Hopefully. But do I know it’s going to? Absolutely not. Do I hope I’ll be here to watch my daughters get married? Absolutely.”

Please click here to donate to I Am ALS and help Brian Wallach find a cure.

It started when he couldn’t grasp a pen. Diagnosed with ALS at 37, former Obama staffer hopes to use campaign skills to raise funds for a cure. [Chicago Tribune]


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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.