Goals and Guiding Principles of AAP
• To assist in the identification of legal professionals who may be troubled;
• To assist AAP clients in their personal recovery from addiction, physical or mental health conditions;
• To educate the legal community on identification, assessment, referral, treatment and community based resources available to meet the needs of judges, lawyers, law students and their families;
• To provide a network of lawyer volunteers who are available to respond to the needs of AAP clients through a peer assistance model;
• To monitor and assist clients while they work to gain admission to practice law, rehabilitate and return to the practice of law, to the bench or to a better quality of life;
• To establish and maintain a cooperative relationship with the Supreme Court of Hawai‘i, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC), the Board of Examiners and the legal community at large.
AAP Guiding Principles:
• The program is motivated by a humanitarian and professionalism concern for the legal community and the public;
• Addiction, mental health concerns and physical disabilities should not be ignored and are conditions from which recovery to a state of fitness to practice law is usually possible, with work;
• Impaired judges and lawyers are obligated to seek assistance and to participate in services necessary to renew their full effectiveness as a lawyer, judge or other legal professional;
• All licensed lawyers and judges have the ethical responsibility to recognize the signs and symptoms of a colleague who may be impaired and to assist the colleague in accessing appropriate services.