In October 1979, William Kane, eight months out of rehab, stood with 17 other attorneys in the chambers of recently appointed New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Wilentz.
They had a request: that Wilentz back a proposed confidential program to help New Jersey lawyers struggling with alcohol disorders and other 
problems.
The chief justice listened politely, but Kane and the others knew granting the confidentiality that the program would need to be successful would be a sticking point.
It was an uphill struggle, but over the next 14 years Kane worked tirelessly with the New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) and the Court to make the New Jersey Lawyers Assistance Program (NJLAP) a reality and a national model.
Kane, the director of NJLAP since its inception in 1993, plans to retire this summer. Considered a pioneer in the field, he built NJLAP into a confidential, free and independent program assisting attorneys, judges and law students struggling with alcohol and substance use disorders, gambling addiction, stress, depression, and other mental health and behavioral issues. The program also broadened to take a proactive approach to well-being.
“When I got out of rehab, I realized this was something that the legal profession needed,” said Kane, who has been in recovery for 42 years.
He is widely respected in the legal community for his impact on the profession in New Jersey and in other states where he helped establish lawyer assistance programs. Warm and personable, Kane is praised for his humility and dedication to helping others. It is not unusual for him to work 40-plus hour weeks and take calls late at night from those in distress.
His dedication in treating clients with honesty, dignity, respect and understanding is part of how the organization earned its national reputation.
“To be the head of the New Jersey Lawyers Assistance Program was not just a position, it was a calling for Bill—one that he undertook with extreme passion and a deep sense of caring for the attorneys, judges and law students whom he had the opportunity to help,” said John Zarych, an attorney who has been actively involved in lawyer assistance in southeastern New Jersey for the past 30 years.
“Bill, very simply, is a gift to our profession,” he added.
Former state Supreme Court Justice Helen Hoens, who served as the Court’s liaison to NJLAP, described Kane as “courageous, compassionate and visionary.”
“In 1993 there was not a whole lot of sympathy for lawyers who had an alcohol problem. And the notion of reaching and helping them was just foreign,” Hoens said.
Thomas R. Curtin, president of the NJSBA from 1993–1994, and a recent vice chair of the NLAP board, called Kane “the alpha and the omega of the program.”
He worked with the late Matthias D. DiLeo, who served as NJSBA president from 1990–1991, to figure out how the program could get “the blessing of the NJSBA, the Supreme Court and the bar,” Curtin said.
Curtin added that NJLAP was structured so that it not only protects the public—particularly clients—but also provides confidential assistance and counseling to the lawyers.
Filling a need
NJLAP proved to fill an important need from its inception. In the first five years, hundreds of attorneys sought its help, Kane said.
“We had nearly 300 attorneys, mostly men, in recovery with a less than five percent relapse rate. That is phenomenal. It’s unbelievable,” he said.
“I sat back and asked, what is it about our charm and brilliance? What magic do we have? Here is the truth: the truth is, attorneys are much better clients than anybody else. We can read the directions on the box. We understand these things and we know what the consequences are. If someone is going to get better, they have a built-in role model. I think attorneys are very good clients and patients—there are exceptions.”
Kane’s insistence on keeping NJLAP separate from the NJSBA and the Supreme Court, and that services be confidential, was critical for an attorney to seek help from the program “without fear of retribution or disclosure of the mere phone call seeking help,” said Robert Nies, chair of the NJLAP board of trustees.
He added that Kane “is a force unto himself,” who can be “a pit bull for what he’s passionate about, which is NJLAP. He has been the guiding force for the mission of this wonderful program we have, and that he’s developed not just for attorneys, law students and bar candidates—but he expanded it to include the Judiciary.”
A calling to help
Born and raised in Newark, a block away from where former New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Arthur T. Vanderbilt lived, Kane came from a three-generation family funeral business, but he knew from a young age that he would pursue a career in law. His mother was involved in politics, and there were often lawyers visiting their home. Kane fell in love with the sound of legal terms. “It seemed like poetry to me,” he said.
After earning a degree in English literature at Seton Hall University in 1962, Kane joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Cameroon. He graduated from Seton Hall Law in 1969 and went into private practice.
Ten years later, he entered rehab after several attorneys and a family member staged an intervention.
Kane said his struggle with alcoholism was so severe, “I did not think I’d make it to 40…. There’s a macho thing in the legal profession about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. And there’s stigma, shame, disgrace of ‘I don’t want anyone to find out,’ and the mistaken belief it’s unethical to be an alcoholic. It’s not any more than it is to have measles.”
After he got out of rehab, Kane became certified as an addiction treatment counselor and consultant. He started the Regional Employees Assistance Program, where he established some of the country’s first programs of this type for employees, including at United Parcel Service. He also received a federal grant establishing New Jersey’s first alcohol treatment program for adult male inmates at Rahway State Prison.
At the same time, Kane dove into working with lawyers struggling with alcohol addiction and other issues and began paving the way toward creating NJLAP. He realized attorneys needed a program that understood them and the pressures and stressors unique to the legal profession.
While there is greater awareness about the high rates of alcohol use disorder and other mental health issues in the legal profession today, particularly since the 2016 landmark study by the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation-American Bar Association Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs, Kane has helped “normalize” and destigmatize the conversation about it, said Laurie Besden, executive director of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers of Pennsylvania.
“I remember one of the first speeches I heard him give. He said substance use disorder and mental health challenges are medical diagnoses like cancer and diabetes, that require treatment,” she said.
Times and attitudes have fortunately changed, Kane said.
“Our whole society has been more accepting. It used to be that going to detox or rehab was considered only for someone who had to be pulled out of the gutter to go there,” he said.
Honored for his contributions
Kane has been recognized with numerous awards throughout his career, including the New Jersey State Bar Foundation Medal of Honor and the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism in the Law’s Lawyer of the Year Award and its Lighthouse Award.
He was also honored with the New Jersey Employee Assistance Professional of the Year Award, the Sunrise House Foundation Diskin Award for Significant Clinical Contributions, the Canadian Bar Association Cushman-MacDonald Award and the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey’s Person of the Year Award.
“It would be impossible to do this work without the skills and dedication of our wonderful staff,” Kane said.
As the NJLAP board begins looking for Kane’s successor, he will stay on to help smooth the transition and lend guidance as the program, and he, begin a new chapter.
Aside from continuing to remain an adjunct faculty member at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies, where he has taught since 1981, Kane said he had not yet made long-term plans for retirement. He said his immediate future will likely include rollerblading in Cape May, visiting the Pre-Raphaelites collection at the Delaware Art Museum and hiking the Appalachian Trail in Warren County.
“Working with NJLAP has been an enriching experience, it truly has been. It’s inspiring to see people get better and go on their own and help someone. It’s difficult to match that,” Kane said.