Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Vermont Bar Journal, Winter 2017, Vol. 43, No. 4 | Page 24

O’Reilly mentally balancing the urgency and seri- ousness of this issue with the reality that I am a new lawyer, and that I am only one human with a finite amount of time each day. I’ve realized though that while I won’t solve Vermont’s opioid crisis, I can focus on serving each client to the best of my abil- ity, on learning as much as possible about their unique lives and pathways into opioid use and recovery—about what worked for them and what could have prevented use or sped up their recovery—and I can bring that down to Montpelier, as I engage in more systemic work on this issue. What will those systemic efforts look like? This coming year will be dedicated to concretizing the gaps I’ve identified into policy recommendations, legislative and administrative advocacy, and potentially even legal-aid clinical programs—related to Medicaid transportation, housing for peo- ple with substance use disorders, access to treatment and confidentiality protections, and criminal records. The issues may also evolve into developing new systems around criminal and housing records. Vermont is well-poised on the policy lev- el to do a lot to get people back to work and to get them stably housed. After ac- cess to treatment, to me, these are the linchpins of ending a drug crisis. I have also worked with the governor’s Opioid Coor- 24 THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2017 dination Council Treatment and Recovery Committee—and in November we will sub- mit recommendations to the governor. Fi- nally, I am working with the Bennington Bar Association to organize a community sym- posium on the opioid crisis in the spring— where we will bring together stakeholders from across the community and the state to identify the Bennington-specific opioid problems as well as local solutions to the crisis. There’s a lot taking shape—the work con- tinues to evolve, and I am trying to let my daily client work inform my next steps. We ask for your support in the fight against the opioid cri- sis by donating to the Vermont Bar Foundation either through their website, https://vtbar- foundation.org/ or by mailing a check to Vermont Bar Foun- dation, PO Box 1170, Montpe- lier VT 05601-1170. This is a fight none of us can afford to lose. www.vtbar.org