Brian P. Kish
Attorney Profile: Resilience and Advocacy

SHORT ANSWER FAQ

1.  Why was your license to practice law suspended?
Answer: Violations of the Code of Professional Responsibility that occurred over a two-month period that followed years of being properly medically treated for two mental health conditions (depression and anxiety) and the medicine that I had been taking for years suddenly stopped working.

2.  Did your former clients ever receive their money?
Answer: The clients were reimbursed through the Ohio Lawyer's Compensation Fund. I later reimbursed that Fund the full amount it had paid out to my former clients.

3.  Were you ever reinstated by the Ohio Supreme Court to practice law?
Answer: Yes, I was reinstated on April 7, 2021.

4.  Why were you not reinstated earlier?
Answer: The Ohio Supreme Court suspended me for a minimum of 2 years, but I chose to double that out of deep remorse. I am my harshest critic. I then decided to make it an even 5 years. Then, for reasons that have nothing to do with my mental or physical health, I waited until 2019 to begin the process of seeking reinstatement.

5.  Aren't you embarrassed admitting that this was all related to mental illness?
Answer: No. Mental illness is common and comes in many forms. You would likely understand if you knew the totality of my life experiences.

6.  What consequences did you incur as a result of the license suspension?
Answer: First, do not feel sorry for me. Actions have consequences. I had to live with knowing that I let down those clients and I disappointed the entire legal profession. I learned that people who I had considered to be really good friends actually weren't. Ninety-five percent (95%) of them abandoned me and continue to avoid me or ignore me to this day.

7.  What is the current status of your mental health?
Answer: Excellent. I am finally free of those mental illnesses for the first time since March of 1994. I do not mean they are properly managed my medicine. They are gone. That is not just my opinion. It is medically verified and I was weaned off all medications under medical supervision.

8.  How did you get cured?
Answer: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a trauma-based form of talk therapy. It has a success rate of approximately 76% - 85% in actual combat veterans. I had been doing everything asked of me by medical professionals, including psychiatrists educated at Harvard. I never stopped seeking help and, finally, a wonderful counselor named Megan Culp recognized that my illnesses were rooted in various traumas that my brain either failed to process correctly or failed to process at all.

 

I had to fully submit to the process, place absolute trust in Megan, and do everything that she asked of me. The process was incredibly difficult in that I had to relive those traumas all over again so that she could guide me through properly processing them using the frontal lobe of my brain. The frontal lobe is the portion that contains reason, ration and logic. I started to improve immediately and then, one day, the illnesses were gone.

9.  Why did you create this page?
Answer: I created this page for 2 reasons. First, the story of my suspension is public, but it is not a complete story. That story is a snapshot of a two-month period of my life, a short part of a long story that continues to be written. I am not trying to deflect or absolve myself of the violations for which the Ohio Supreme Court suspended my license to practice law. That story is well-documented, but it ends in 2012. There is more to it and all of it should be available.

 

Second, and most importantly, I feel an obligation to share the wonders that EMDR did for me. I intend on being a vocal advocate for mental health awareness for the remainder of my life. I have spoken publicly to the Mahoning County Bar Association about my experience, and I now serve on the MCBA's Lawyers Assistance Committee. I will never turn down an opportunity to share my story. 

 

I am a regular person, just like you. No matter our ages or occupations, we are all people who have flaws, struggles and individual stories.

10.  What should I do if I want to learn a bit more detail about your story?
Answer: Read the longer portion that follows.

The Ohio Supreme Court disciplined me in 2012 based upon professional misconduct that occurred in 2009. Specifically, my license to practice law was indefinitely suspended. In Ohio, that means a minimum period of 2 years must pass before an attorney can seek reinstatement in order to practice law. The Opinion of the Court can be found on the internet, but the full explanation of what occurred is nowhere to be found - until now.

 

I suffered from mental illness. That is not an excuse. It is a fact, and one that no longer causes me embarrassment. At the time I write this, I am finally free of it. Again, that is not just my opinion. It is a medically established fact.

I graduated from the University of Akron School of Law in 2001. I worked full-time and drove an hour to Akron 3 nights a week for 4 years. That was incredibly difficult but, like many others have, I did it. I endured that entire experience while being medically managed for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

 

The Major Depressive Disorder started on March 28, 1994, the day my father unexpectedly died at the age of 54 when I was away at college at the age of 20. Approximately 21% of adults in the U.S. will experience MDD during their lives. I developed anxiety shortly after being sworn in as a lawyer in December of 2001, a condition that 31.1% of American adults experience at some point in their lives. Despite those conditions, I was properly managed with medicine and under a physician's care at all times. The medications helped me to function not just as a person, but as a successful lawyer. 

My brain fundamentally changed the day my dad died. I did the best I could, and my best was pretty good, until the Spring of 2009. I had been a lawyer for a little over 7 years by that time. I argued before the Ohio Supreme Court in 2006. I was recognized by the Youngstown Business Journal as one of the "Top 40 Under 40 Professionals" in 2007.

 

I was well-respected and well-liked among my peers in the legal community. I was able to obtain that recognition and earn that respect while battling those two mental health conditions because the medicines prescribed to me worked.

I woke up one day in the Spring of 2009 and I knew instantly something felt off. I gave it a few days before calling my doctor. Suddenly and without any warning, the anti-depressant I had been on for 15 years stopped working. So did the anxiety medicine I had been on for 7 years. It was as if my entire brain chemistry had suddenly changed.

 

My doctor and I started trying to replace those meds with new ones. The depression meds typically take 6 weeks to reach a therapeutic level. If it wasn't the right med, then I needed tapered off of that one and started on a new one. We went through many, many cycles of trying to find a new med that worked for me. Most anxiety meds work more immediately but it took quite a while to find one that worked for me. I tended to have all the side effects that are rare for most others. I was still performing at a high level professionally, but every single aspect of my life became increasingly more difficult.

In the end of August through September in 2009, I was approached by 10-12 clients to perform certain legal tasks. They placed their trust in me. I failed them. I reached a point where I was in such poor mental health that I walked out of my office and never returned. I was in a fight for my life, but I fully and freely admit that I abandoned those clients. I agree that I should have been suspended by the Ohio Supreme Court.

 

I voluntarily stopped practicing in late September of 2009, over 2 years before the Court imposed the indefinite suspension. While I could not control the deterioration of my mental health because I was doing everything possible to regain it, I deserved the suspension because I could have avoided it completely by doing something so simple and yet so hard. I failed to ask for help from my colleagues.

There were at least 50 lawyers who were close friends at that time who would have gladly helped me by assisting those clients. I failed to ask for help. I failed to return the clients their money so they could hire someone else. I failed, I failed, I failed. I take accountability for that without reservation regardless of any medical condition or life circumstance that was occurring at that time. 

 

I sincerely apologize to the clients who I harmed and to the legal profession that I disappointed. Everyone deserved better from me. All of the clients were reimbursed by the Ohio Lawyer's Compensation Fund, and I later reimbursed the Fund the entirety of what it had paid to them. It is truly an honor and a privilege to be an attorney. It is a position of great trust. I let those clients down. I let the entire legal profession down. I let my family down. I let myself down. I let my father down.

The Opinion states that the Court was not convinced that I had regained the mental fitness required to return to the practice of law when it rendered its Opinion in January of 2012, but the Court was actually referring to the disciplinary hearing that had occurred nearly a year earlier. In January of 2012, I was once again mentally fit to resume my career as an attorney, but I needed to wait a minimum of two years to seek reinstatement and I deserved that penalty.

 

I beat myself up for years about what had occurred. I truly did. My attitude was, "If they think I need to wait 2 years, I'm going to wait 4 years. I want to leave no doubt in anyone's mind that, when I return, I deserve the privilege of practicing law again." In fact, for reasons that are unrelated to mental health and no one else's concern, I waited until 2019 before beginning the process to have my law license reinstated.

The hearing on whether I should have my law license reinstated lasted over 2 hours as the three-member panel and I discussed my mental health journey. At the conclusion of that hearing, two of the panel members stated that they would hire me if I lived in their areas. The panel unanimously recommended that the Ohio Supreme Court reinstate my law license. My law license was reinstated on April 7, 2021.

I was back to the state of mental health that I had prior to the Spring of 2009. I was being properly managed with medicine. I still had the conditions, but then something somewhat miraculous occurred. I do not use that term lightly. As I write this, I no longer have those conditions and no longer take any medicine. All of that was accomplished through immense effort, never giving up and the incredible talent of an amazing counselor named Megan Culp. She introduced me to a form of trauma-based talk therapy called EMDR.

EMDR is a type of counseling that is highly successful with patients who have not properly processed trauma in their lives or not processed them at all. It has a success rate of between 76% - 85% in actual combat veterans. I came to learn that my mental illnesses were rooted in a series of traumas and that it was my father's sudden death that was the tipping point for me. Then, additional traumas continued to occur.

 

Megan actually helped me get back the healthy brain that I had at age 20, the night before my father died. Megan Culp cured me. Yes, it was a collaborative effort that required me to reexamine and relive the most painful of traumas in my life, but I look at her like a firefighter who carried me out of a burning building. Those bonds that form are real. I will never be able to repay her.

 

That 20-year-old brain, with its demeanor, confidence, and positive attitude, suddenly was infused with 29 years of legal knowledge, skill, talent, life experience and wisdom. That is who I am today.

Now, having told my story of illness, disappointment, discipline, reinstatement and return to full mental health - I am moving on and not looking back.

 

The version of me that now exists looks much like previous person, but I am very different. I will spend the rest of my life and career enjoying and maintaining my healthy brain. I will also spend it being a very vocal advocate for mental health awareness. I presently, and proudly, serve on the Lawyers Assistance Committee of the Mahoning County Bar Association. I want to help others, regardless of their occupations.

If you are struggling with mental health issues, please do the hardest thing imaginable - the thing that I lacked the courage to do - ask for help. There is no reason to feel worse than you want to feel, but you have to seek it out and keep searching until you find it. It will never stumble into you. Pursue it and seize it.

 

More information on EMDR from the Cleveland Clinic can be found here.

Best Wishes,
Attorney Brian P. Kish