DOJ finds Tennessee board discriminated against lawyer over opioid disorder medication
DOJ found that two organizations that run Tennessee's attorney licensing program discriminated against a lawyer over his opioid use disorder medication.
The Justice Department found that two Tennessee organizations discriminated against a lawyer who was denied his law license for nearly three years and forced to pay thousands of dollars for evaluations because he was using a medication to treat his opioid use disorder.
The findings, published last Tuesday in a letter to the organizations — the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners and the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program — build on the Justice Department’s efforts to protect the millions of people in recovery from opioid addiction from discrimination. It is its third such case about employment and licensing and the first related to the legal profession.
The detailed public letter lays out how the organizations together violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects people with substance use disorder, when they “forced him to choose between his law license or continued treatment as prescribed as necessary by his treating physician.”
The Justice Department letter detailed the organizations’ “burdensome” actions against the lawyer based on “speculation and stigma.” They included requiring him to undergo psychological and physical evaluations at his own expense, attend a treatment program and stop using buprenorphine, a Food and Drug Administration-approved medication his doctor prescribed to treat opioid use disorder.
The lawyer, referred to in the letter by his initials, D.S., is Derek Scott, whose battle for his law license was chronicled by NBC News in March. Scott confirmed that D.S. referred to him and that he worked closely with Justice Department investigators.
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