{"id":4754,"date":"2004-03-08T14:58:23","date_gmt":"2004-03-08T18:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2004\/03\/08\/lawyer-therapy-can-affect-dis"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:58:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:58:57","slug":"lawyer-therapy-can-affect-disability-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2004\/03\/08\/lawyer-therapy-can-affect-disability-insurance\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer Therapy Can Affect Disability Insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\"><font size=\"2\"><strong><em>I<\/em><\/strong>n this month&#8217;s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dcbar.org\/for_lawyers\/washington_lawyer\/\">Washington Lawyer<\/a><\/em>, DC Bar President Shirley Ann Higuchi describes the benefits of seeking therapy for depression or anxiety, and praises the local Lawyer Counseling Program. <font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\">(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dcbar.org\/for_lawyers\/washington_lawyer\/march_2004\/president.cfm\">from the president<\/a>, &#8220;<\/font><\/font><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\">Lawyer Counseling Program: Proven Results, Problems Resolved,&#8221; March 2004)<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\"><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\"><strong>Caveat<\/strong>:  Those experiencing such problems should indeed seek help, but I wonder about the effects of mental health therapy on the ability of lawyers to obtain or keep disability insurance.&#8211; especially solos and those in small firms, who do not have group disability policies available. <\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/ethicalesq\/MinusSignblack.jpg\" alt=\"minus sign black\" \/>  I have personally seen disability coverage refused to lawyers who have had conventional, weekly outpatient therapy for mild forms of depression or anxiety (particularly, if any kind of medication was taken).  The reason given for refusing coverage is the fact that depression is the leading form of lawyer disability claims, or near the top, in all states.  Such disability firms even refuse to offer disability coverage containing a specific exclusion for depression.  The resulting lack of coverage could become a major source of anxiety on its own.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">This kind of mental health blackballing probably happens for other professionals seeking disability coverage.  Lawyers can and should, however, take the lead in seeking to find solutions that do not penalize those who have sought or are seeking counseling for psychological or emotional problems. <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this month&#8217;s Washington Lawyer, DC Bar President Shirley Ann Higuchi describes the benefits of seeking therapy for depression or anxiety, and praises the local Lawyer Counseling Program. (from the president, &#8220;Lawyer Counseling Program: Proven Results, Problems Resolved,&#8221; March 2004) Caveat: Those experiencing such problems should indeed seek help, but I wonder about the effects [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1eG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13935,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4754\/revisions\/13935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}