FindLaw’s Covid-19 resource center contains updated information and articles law firms and legal professionals can use during the novel coronavirus outbreak. Below you can find information on working remotely, managing clients, and the legal issues surrounding COVID-19.

FindLaw has significant information available on how to advise clients, manage staff, and work securely away from the office.

You can also assuage clients and answer their questions. From contract disputes to employment to immigration, Covid-19 will have a long-lasting impact on people’s daily lives. The pandemic will result in a host of issues requiring legal assistance.

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People in recovery can teach us a lot about making it through tough times with strength and dignity. Rams in Recovery and The Well are collaborating to share some recovery wisdom we can borrow as we navigate our new reality.

1. The fight is fixed.

Wait, what? Is it really a central tenet of recovery to just give up and accept that things can’t be changed? Well… yes. Many people recovering from addiction must accept that they cannot control their substance use once they start using. This allows them to move forward with a goal of not using at all.

We must take a deep breath and accept the reality of COVID-19 before we can navigate it. That we are quarantined, that we have lost a job, that we are anxious about our loved ones. We do this not out of defeat, but so that we can move forward and find ways to reach out to friends, file for unemployment, or challenge those in power to do better.

The Serenity Prayer, common in recovery meetings, says, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Spiritual or not, we would all do well to live by the spirit of this quote.

A Message About COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
from JLAP

JLAP’s Executive Director and Clinical Staff attended the Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP) annual conference in April 2019.  The FSPHP coordinates effective detection, evaluation, treatment, and monitoring of physicians at risk for or experiencing stress, burnout out, mental illness, substance use disorders, physical illness, and other potentially impairing conditions.

Pictured Above: Lela Brown, Jennifer Gros (JLAP’s Clinical Director), Barry Lubin, M.D. and Jessica Duplantis (JLAP’s Clinical Case Manager).

Can brain science help identify people who may be predisposed to opioid addiction? Researchers say a weak prefrontal cortex makes people more vulnerable to abusing drugs.

A new USC study examines how to identify the people most at risk of opioid addiction and how to best treat those already addicted.

In a report published Tuesday, researchers in neuroscience, addiction and behavioral health laid out the latest research into what makes individuals vulnerable to substance abuse and dependency, along with new discoveries that may hold the key for successful prevention and treatment for those addicted to opioids and other drugs.

The authors noted that, although the use of psychoactive drugs has occurred in almost every society in human history, fatalities from the more recent wave of opioid use are unprecedented. More Americans are dying from overdoses than from car accidents.

Their study, published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, makes the case that understanding the neurobiological mechanisms underlying drug-seeking behaviors is critical, as is finding evidence-based prevention strategies for opioid abuse in particular and substance abuse in general.

To read the complete Jenesse Miller/USC News article, click here.

On November 21, 2019, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued an order amending Rule XIX, Section 24E3 to specify that in lawyer disciplinary matters JLAP is the path through which respondents must pass to be reinstated or readmitted in cases wherein substance use disorders are a causative factor in misconduct.

The amendment reflects recommendations made by the national experts in the 2015 JLAP Performance Audit. It is also a straightforward codification of thirty years of Louisiana Supreme Court jurisprudence endorsing JLAP, beginning with the watershed case Louisiana State Bar Association vs. Arthur F. Dumaine, 550 So.2d 1197 (La. 1989) wherein the Court ordered JLAP to provide the Court with expert, independent, objective and reliable data regarding the diagnosis, treatment and recovery of respondents in substance abuse cases.

JLAP is recognized nationally as a leading program and it continues to generate unprecedented 95% no-relapse success rates on average. The Court’s amendment of Rule XIX, Section 24E3 will not only ensure that the public is appropriately protected from the harm that an impaired lawyer can cause, it will also save more lives and careers among those attorneys who have fallen victim to the diseases of alcoholism and addiction.

To read complete Order, click here.

Does yo-yo dieting drive compulsive eating? There may be a connection.

According to BUSM researchers the chronic cyclic pattern of overeating followed by undereating, reduces the brain’s ability to feel reward and may drive compulsive eating. This finding suggests that future research into treatment of compulsive eating behavior should focus on rebalancing the mesolimbic dopamine system–the part of the brain responsible for feeling reward or pleasure.

An estimated 15 million people compulsively eat in the U.S. It is a common feature of obesity and eating disorders, most notably, binge eating disorder. People often overeat because it is pleasurable in the short term, but then attempt to compensate by dieting, reducing calorie intake and limiting themselves to “safe”, less palatable food. However, diets often fail, causing frequent “relapse” to overeating of foods high in fat and sugar (palatable foods).

“We are just now beginning to understand the addictive-like properties of food and how repeated overconsumption of high sugar – similar to taking drugs – may affect our brains and cause compulsive behaviors,” said corresponding author Pietro Cottone, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology & experimental therapeutics and co-director of the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders.

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