[That’s Paul Newman above, playing the alcoholic trial lawyer in “The Verdict.”]

I recently caused consternation (again) on the listserv of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL), the organization that brings together most of the lawyers who concentrate on the contentious field of legal ethics as ethics partners, professors, state bar disciplinary counsel, CLE trainers, consultants, and just interested lawyers. I had been considering dropping this metaphorical bomb on the group for some time. My thesis: lawyers who are alcoholics, “recovering” or not, are ethically obligated to inform their clients of that ongoing and incurable malady. I see no way out of this ethical obligation, but the legal profession has been scrupulously avoiding confronting reality for centuries.

Alcoholism was once the secret meaning of “moral turpitude” in state bar associations’ requirements for admission: if you were guilty of moral turpitude, you couldn’t get a law license because of a presumed character deficit. When alcoholism was finally recognized as the illness it is, being an alcoholic was no longer a basis for bar exclusion or discipline. Bar associations all established “Lawyer Assistance Programs” as the alternative to punishment for lawyers with alcohol or substance abuse problems. That’s nice. However, none of the measures currently employed deal with the inconvenient facts of alcoholism.

Based on my knowledge and extensive experience with friends, family and associates, all alcoholics are untrustworthy by definition. They have a strong tendency to lie, for example (and they will admit that, if pressed) to conceal their addiction as well as the often disastrous results of it. No one, including the alcoholic himself or herself, can know when a relapse will occur or what will trigger it. A binge alcoholic can seem healthy and dependable for months or years, and suddenly go on a bender that incapacitates him. My late wife, a brilliant and capable woman who struggled courageously with the illness her whole life and ran our business and finances (or, should I say, said she was and made a good show of it) would have sudden unpredictable relapses that she covered up with consummate skill. She was what is called a maintenance-level alcoholic. She had a degree of intoxication she needed to maintain to function well and appear sober; below that level of alcohol consumption she suffered from withdrawal symptoms. One drink over that set-point, however, and she was physically and mentally incapacitated. Many maintenance level alcoholics successfully hide their addictions while actually being drunk every day in highly challenging jobs…until they can’t. Alcoholism is a progressive disease. Over time, alcoholics’ ability to control their addiction deteriorates along with their over-all health and mental state.