I am feeling a little bit older and a little more mortal today.  I was in court this morning when someone told me that my first boss as a lawyer, Jim Mattox, died overnight at the age of 65.  When I got my law license back in the day, my first job was to serve as an assistant Texas attorney general in the habeas corpus section of the AG’s office during the Mattox administration.  I cannot claim to have been a close person friend of General Mattox.  I was only a lowly newbie appellate lawyer, and I met him maybe half a dozen times while at the AG and had dinner with him once at a campaign function.  But I can attest to his having an excellent politician’s memory.  A few years ago, while I was sitting in the lobby of the Comal County Jail waiting for visitation with a client, I saw him there trying to bail out one of his ranch hands, who had apparently partied a little too enthusiastically the night before.  He saw me, walked over to me, and although he didn’t remember my name, he asked me how I was doing and thanked me for working in his office fifteen years previously.  Anyone who was privileged to work in the AG’s Office at time remembers it as a place with full of bright, creative lawyers and remembers Jim Mattox as a boss who wasn’t afraid to take on big companies or special interests in order to stand up for ordinary people.

During the past week, we have been retained by two new clients who each have Driving While Intoxicated cases and who both suffer from bipolar disorder.  Over the course of my practice, one of the things that has surprised me the most is the high percentage of DWI clients who have a bipolar diagnosis.  Bipolar disorder is something that, oddly enough, you rarely hear DWI lawyers discuss.  I don’t think think I have ever been to a single seminar or conference where the subject was discussed or seen the topic in a single defense journal article.  And yet, at any given time, we will have at least a half dozen bipolar DWI clients.  The relationship between bipolar disorder and alcoholism is well known.  People suffering from bipolar disorder often “self-medicate” with alcohol or drugs in order to “regulate” their mood swings.  Of course, not all alcoholics are bipolar.  But many bipolar people are alcoholic.  When we see clients coming into our office with a history of multiple alcohol-related arrests, one of the first things we want to find out is they have ever had a psychological evaluation and whether or not there was a bipolar diagnosis.  We have met many undiagnosed bipolar clients over the years who have repeatedly been to alcohol rehab and treatment, but only to have quick relapses.  It is only when they are referred to a physician or psychiatrist to treat their underlying bipolar disorder that they can begin to cope with their alcoholism, and hopefully, avoid returing to the criminal justice system.  Here’s hoping that the DWI defense bar starts devoting as much time to understanding the mental illnesses that bring many of our clients in the door as it does to dissecting field sobriety tests.