David A. Clark, a Partner in the firm’s Las Vegas office, has been chosen by the APRL to Chair the newly formed Lawyer Well-Being Committee. This committee will act as a liaison with the American Bar Association (ABA), the National Organization of Bar Counsel (NOBC), and state-led efforts to implement the goals of the ABA’s National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. The committee is planning its first CLE at APRL’s Annual Meeting in Chicago in August.
Various reports indicate that 40-70 percent of discipline and malpractice claims against lawyers involve depression or substance abuse. As APRL’s follow-on commitment to act on the call of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being for stakeholders in the legal profession to join in creating a better future for our lawyers, this committee will work with stakeholders and jurisdictions across the country to coordinate and implement state-level actions to improve the effectiveness, ethical integrity, and simple human experience of being a lawyer.
Judges, regulators, employers, bar associations, assistance programs, liability carriers, and law students are coming together in the goal that, “to be a good lawyer, one has to be a healthy lawyer.” APRL’s mission includes initiating positive changes in laws and regulations regarding professional responsibility and the development and implementation of sound ethical standards within the legal profession. All of that begins with a healthy, thriving, and connected lawyer.
David A. Clark’s experience includes 15 years as a prosecutor for the Office of Bar Counsel, including five years as chief discipline counsel for the State Bar. He has extensive experience in attorney regulation for professional liability, attorney discipline and commercial litigation.
He established the training program for the Southern and Northern Disciplinary Boards, obtained numerous changes to the Nevada Rules of Professional Conduct and the Supreme Court’s rules for attorney discipline, and he drafted the Disciplinary Rules of Procedure that were adopted in July 2014 by a task force and the Board of Governors.