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