A firm-funded therapy channel that goes deeper than the referral line.
California law firms already have the State Bar's Lawyer Assistance Program. CEREVITY is the firm-funded clinical channel that sits alongside it: matched clinicians, extended sessions, and no firm visibility into who has engaged or with what.
via telehealth
licensed clinicians
and 3 hours
out-of-network
A firm-funded clinical channel that complements the California LAP.
This page is for HR directors, benefits leads, and well-being committees at California law firms scoping an attorney mental health channel that goes deeper than the State Bar's Lawyer Assistance Program referral line. If that is you, the rest of this page is the briefing document.
CEREVITY operates as a clinical network with direct relationships between the network, the clinicians, and the partner firm. There is no third-party broker layer. Attorneys are matched, not first-served. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure. Care is firm-funded, private-pay, out-of-network, and structurally outside the State Bar channel by design.
Our clinicians are independent licensed professionals, many of whom have worked with practicing attorneys before and understand the realities of firm life from inside their consulting rooms. CEREVITY exists because the State Bar LAP, which is scoped and statutorily protected for a specific set of purposes, was never built to be a firm's ongoing, depth-oriented therapy benefit, and because that benefit needs to be built differently.
The State Bar LAP is a referral and monitoring program. It is not a firm therapy benefit, and it was never meant to be.
The reasons your attorneys do not treat the LAP line as ongoing therapy are not failures of the program. They are inherent to how it was scoped. The State Bar built the LAP for a specific, statutorily defined purpose, and a firm-funded benefit sits structurally outside it.
The California LAP, administered by the State Bar, helps attorneys, applicants, and law students dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, and mental health or substance use concerns. It offers free assessment, support services, and a confidential or monitored track as needed. Its confidentiality is real and statutory: under Business and Professions Code section 6234, LAP information cannot be disclosed in civil, disciplinary, or public-records proceedings. That protection is the program's strength and also a signal of its purpose. It is built around assessment, support, and where appropriate monitoring, not around an open-ended course of private therapy a firm funds for its people.
Because the LAP is a State Bar program tied to licensure, many attorneys carry an association between it and discipline, monitoring, and the impaired-practitioner pathway, whether or not that association is fair. That association is exactly what keeps a high-functioning attorney from picking up the phone before things become acute. A firm-funded channel with no connection to the licensing body removes that barrier, which is the point of having one.
What changes when the channel is built as a firm benefit: matched clinicians with experience treating practicing attorneys, session formats long enough to do real work, scheduling that respects court and billing calendars, and a confidentiality posture that gives the firm no visibility into who has engaged or with what. The LAP stays where it belongs, as the appropriate channel for impairment-level and monitoring situations.
What CEREVITY clinicians actually treat in a California firm.
The clinical scope is built around the presenting profile of practicing attorneys, not the workforce-wide profile an EAP is built for, and not the impairment focus of a monitoring program.
Chronic billable pressure
The hours target is not a season, it is the structure of the job. When recovery capacity goes first and the work starts to slip behind it, that is a clinical pattern, and it is treated as one. Different from acute stress.
High-functioning anxiety
Performance maintained at cost. The work product looks fine to the client, the firm, and the family; the cost is invisible until it is not. Common across associates and partners alike.
Alcohol and the firm culture
Drinking is woven into how a lot of firms socialize and decompress, which makes the early line between coping and dependence hard to see. CEREVITY treats this as a clinical issue well before it reaches the threshold a monitoring program is built for.
Trial and deal-cycle recovery
All-consuming engagement followed by sudden depressurization has a clinical signature. Most attorneys learn to manage it; some never do. The intensive session format was built partly for this.
Imposter feelings and elevation
The promotion happened. The certainty did not. Common in newly elevated partners, lateral arrivals, and senior associates carrying partner-track expectations.
Decision and judgment fatigue
Consequential decisions all week, each with client, matter, or ethical implications. Eventually the cost shows up, and not always in the obvious places.
Identity fusion with the practice
Years of being defined by the work means separating self from role becomes its own clinical project. Particularly acute around career transitions, parental leave, and the runway to partnership or to leaving.
Vicarious trauma and difficult matters
Family law, criminal defense, immigration, and plaintiff-side litigation expose attorneys to material that accumulates. The toll is real and treatable, and it rarely shows up on any firm's radar.
Three session formats, each chosen for the work.
Most benefits programs offer one session length. CEREVITY offers three, because different kinds of clinical work need different amounts of time. The choice is made between the clinician and the attorney, not by what a payor will reimburse.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care in this format.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour. Focused work on a specific transition or decision.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution within a single session rather than broken across weeks.
Because CEREVITY operates outside the insurance reimbursement model, session length is set by the clinical work, not by what a payor will reimburse. That is the structural reason all three formats, the 50-minute, the 90-minute, and the 3-hour, can exist on the same network.
Ready to scope a firm-tier briefing?
Briefings are scoped to your firm. We respond personally within 48 business hours with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the shape you are evaluating, including how CEREVITY sits alongside your existing LAP referral path.
Request a briefingHow a attorney gets matched, in five steps.
Matched, not first-served. Here is the process that produces the match for a practicing attorney.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. The form is operated by CEREVITY, not by a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. This is the step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician in the network is matched to the attorney based on the review. The attorney receives the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
The attorney schedules directly through CEREVITY infrastructure. No phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues with the matched clinician on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed cap.
Capability comparison for California Law Firms.
A vendor evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a leadership-tier offering for attorneys. Both models have a place. They are designed for different populations.
| Dimension | Typical EAP | Executive-tier point solution | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between firm and roster of contractors; scales well to workforce-wide coverage | Single-vendor platform with W-2 or contracted clinician pool | Independent clinical network with direct relationships, no broker layer |
| Clinician assignment | First contractor to reply with availability; optimized for speed-to-first-session | Algorithmic matching on intake-form inputs | Clinical review of intake by network leadership against active capacity |
| Intake and scheduling | Phone handoff to clinician's line; verbal scheduling on callback | App-based intake; in-app scheduling | Network-operated intake; direct online scheduling, no phone handoff |
| Session formats | Standard 50-minute; capped session counts per issue | Standard 45 to 50-minute sessions | 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour formats; no employer-imposed cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable workforce concerns; intentionally generalist | Workforce-wide therapy and coaching, with executive tier branded on top | Built around presenting issues specific to California Law Firms |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy; modality-agnostic roster | Generalist therapy; some specialty referral | CBT, DBT, and psychodynamic clinicians, matched to presenting issue and modality preference at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density; varies by region | National via telehealth, with roster density variation | Nationwide via telehealth across all 50 states |
| Payment model | Firm-sponsored; covered through benefits plan | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private-pay; out-of-network; structured through partnership agreement |
| Firm visibility | Aggregate utilization reporting; broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement and utilization metrics | Administrative reporting only; no clinical content visible |
| Where each model fits | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing care with executive add-on | California Law Firms, end-to-end |
What the firm sees, and what the firm does not.
For a attorney-tier-tier mental health channel to function, the participating attorney has to trust that engaging with it does not create firm visibility into their care. CEREVITY is designed around that requirement.
- Confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals.
- Aggregate utilization at the partnership level, where contractually appropriate.
- Invoicing and eligibility reconciliation.
- Nothing tied to a specific named attorney's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named attorney has scheduled, attended, or engaged with care.
- What clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned.
- Session notes, treatment plans, diagnostic information, or progress data.
- Any attendance detail at the individual level.
Clinicians in the network are independent licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. Protected health information is held within the clinical infrastructure and is not transmitted to the partner organization, and the agreements governing it are defined in writing before the partnership goes live.
Clinical records, session content, and individual engagement data sit inside the clinical platform and are not shared with the partner organization. The administrative layer is structurally separate from the clinical layer.
Eligibility lists are maintained on the partner side and confirmed against the network side at the point of intake. Administering eligibility does not require the partner to receive clinical information back.
A Business Associate Agreement is executed where the partnership structure requires it. The partnership agreement defines the administrative reporting scope explicitly, in writing, before the partnership goes live.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a attorney-tier-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first attorney in care. Here is how CEREVITY runs that period.
A 60-minute kickoff with your team and CEREVITY's partnership lead. We confirm the partnership shape, the eligibility model, the administrative reporting scope, and the internal owner on your side. The Business Associate Agreement, where applicable, is executed in this window.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list in the format your administrative systems support. CEREVITY confirms it against the network side and establishes the verification path that runs at the point of intake. No clinical data flows backward; only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, attorney-tier-appropriate internal comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. Your team adapts it to your voice. The communication is designed to be received without stigma.
Eligible individuals begin intake on their own cadence. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of each intake. By day 30, the partnership is operational and your internal owner has a quarterly review cadence with the CEREVITY partnership lead.
The business case for the firm and its well-being committee.
Three axes the well-being committee, the managing partner, or HR can defend in a budget conversation. The numbers will vary by firm; the structural argument does not.
Attorney retention is a per-departure problem, not a workforce problem.
A single unplanned attorney departure costs the firm in recruiting, ramp time, lost matter continuity, and the morale of those left covering. Replacing a mid-level associate is widely estimated to cost a substantial fraction of annual compensation once recruiting and lost productivity are counted. A clinical channel built for the realities of practice pays for itself across very few prevented departures.
Attorney capacity is a leveraged input.
An attorney running at 70 percent of capacity is not a 30 percent loss to the firm. It is a leveraged loss across every matter they handle, every junior they supervise, and every client relationship they hold. Recovery of clinical capacity flows downstream through the whole team.
Recruiting and the well-being signal.
Associates and laterals increasingly evaluate a firm's well-being posture as part of the decision to join or stay. A named, confidential, firm-funded mental health channel that goes beyond the bar referral line is a differentiating signal in a competitive California hiring market.
Questions attorneys and their teams ask first.
CEREVITY is a complement to the LAP, not a replacement. The California LAP, administered by the State Bar under Business and Professions Code section 6234, remains the appropriate channel for assessment, monitoring, and impairment-level concerns, and carries statutory confidentiality protections specific to that program. CEREVITY is the firm-funded, private-pay channel for ongoing, depth-oriented therapy that attorneys will engage with early, before a situation becomes acute. Most firms keep their LAP referral path in place and add CEREVITY alongside it.
No. Administrative reporting only. The firm receives confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals and aggregate utilization where contractually appropriate. The firm does not see whether a specific named attorney has scheduled, attended, or engaged, what clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned. This is contractually scoped before the partnership goes live.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are independently licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. The handling of any protected health information, and the specific agreements that govern it including any Business Associate Agreement, are defined in writing in the partnership agreement before the partnership goes live, scoped to your firm's structure. Whether a given agreement applies is a legal determination made with your counsel.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are bound by their licensure-specific mandatory reporting obligations, which include duties around danger to self or others and suspected abuse. CEREVITY is not a reporting workaround and does not represent itself as one. For attorneys with impairment-level concerns that would point toward LAP involvement or board reporting, the LAP remains the appropriate channel.
No. CEREVITY is private-pay and out-of-network by design, funded by the firm. The structure is intentional: it is the only way to deliver the clinical scope, session formats, and confidentiality posture that practicing attorneys require.
Pricing depends on the shape of the engagement, the size of the eligible attorney population, and how the firm administers the benefit. The briefing call is where we identify the right structure, and the cost falls out of that, not the other way around.
First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of intake, depending on modality requirements and scheduling parameters.
Through a briefing call. Use the form below or email [email protected] directly. Briefings are scoped to your firm; we respond personally within 48 business hours.
Tell us about your firm. We respond within 48 business hours.
Briefings are scoped to your firm. Share a few details below and we will respond personally with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the firm-funded, LAP-aligned channel you are evaluating.
The structural argument on this page is based on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on EAP panels, combined with widely-published industry estimates of EAP utilization and California Law Firms-specific data where cited. Specific contractual scopes, including the administrative reporting boundary and the BAA structure, are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before any partnership goes live.
