State - Former Michigan attorney is expert on gambling addiction among lawyers

By Danielle Ulman The Daily Record Newswire BALTIMORE, MD -- The recent sentencing of a former Maryland malpractice lawyer brought to light an addiction rarely discussed in the professional legal community -- gambling. Bradley Schwartz was sentenced to five years in state prison on a felony theft charge for stealing more than $1.5 million from his client trust account to feed a gambling addiction. Schwartz was caught dipping into client funds after he fell victim to an e-mail scam aimed at lawyers. A bogus client sent him a $385,000 check to cash, a portion of which the client hoped Schwartz would wire back before realizing it was a fake. Instead, Schwartz cashed the check to repay money to his client account that he had lost gambling. The bank and authorities got involved when settlement checks began to bounce. Awareness of compulsive gambling among lawyers is rare, likely because it presents fewer outward signs of a problem than alcoholism or drug abuse. "It's something we run into from time to time and something we are on the lookout for. It's a hidden addiction and lawyers, like other professional groups, will do anything and everything to keep that addiction under wraps because it can ruin a career," said Jim Quinn, director of the Lawyer Assistance Program at the Maryland State Bar Association. Quinn said he sees lawyers with compulsive-gambling problems about once a year. "It doesn't mean that that's all that there is out there, but they're not coming forward," he said. Compulsive-gambling problems double within a 50-mile radius of a casino, according to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Michael J. Burke knows all too well what accessibility to cash and casinos can do to an addict. Burke practiced law for 25 years in Howell, Mich., before spending nearly three years in prison beginning in 2001 for stealing $1.6 million from clients to pay for his compulsive gambling. Now, he travels nationally to meet with state and local bar associations and give presentations on gambling and addiction. He also has written a book published by the American Bar Association called "Never Enough." Burke and his wife traveled to gambling destinations annually, and while he lost a lot of money on those trips, he said he could make it back over the year. Everything changed for the former solo practitioner when Casino Windsor opened about an hour away from his home in 1994. "I started going a couple days a week," he said. "In the end of my gambling I went almost every day. No one ever knew, because I was going during work and no one ever checked up on me to see that I actually went to court." Studies show that, like Burke and Schwartz, two out of three gamblers will steal money either for gambling or to take care of issues that arise from gambling. "If there's a possibility of a compulsive gambler getting his or her hands on money, they will do it without fail," Burke said. "A lot of people don't have access to that kind of money -- lawyers do." Roughly 15 percent to 18 percent of attorneys have a substance-abuse problem, compared to 10 percent of the general population. Gambling is not included in that category, but substance abuse is often a gateway to a gambling problem. Burke suffered from alcoholism, which he was treated for in the 1970s, and later picked up his gambling addiction. He said that's what happens to many people. "They trade one addiction for another," he said. There is no indication that Schwartz had other addictions. According to The Washington Post, notes of support to the judge said Schwartz had lived with depression for most of his life and lost his wife in 1998 to polycystic kidney disease. Like Schwartz, Burke used money from his winnings to pay back his client trust fund. Schwartz said in court that he always thought he could pay everything back, a common feeling among gamblers. "The compulsive gambler believes -- he believes with every ounce of his being -- that if he just gets one more chance," Burke said, "he can win big and pay it all off." Published: Fri, Nov 26, 2010