Partnership agreements should include provisions that allow firms to deal with partners suffering from alcohol or drug abuse, or emotional problems, delegates in San Francisco were told.

Edward Flitton, managing partner of national US firm Holland & Hart, said a recent survey indicated that 25% of US lawyers with 20-plus years' experience suffer from such problems.

He said that while it was straightforward to deal with employees in situations like these, it was difficult with partners.

The former managing partner of one top 20 City firm told the Gazette that his firm lost a partner every year through alcoholism and that most large firms are the same.

Holland & Hart is highly unusual in having a partnership agreement that creates an elected partnership responsibility committee (PRC), which handles partners whose problems are affecting their performance.

It is expressly independent of the firm's management.

Mr Flitton said the PRC has three objectives: to address performance issues with which the management cannot deal; to offer support, guidance and assistance to partners facing private and professional problems; and to consult with partners individually and collectively on any issues they want to raise.

The PRC has the power to require a partner to undergo counselling and be supervised, and ultimately, recommend to the firm's management committee more severe measures, such as an enforced leave of absence with or without pay, financial sanctions, and a change in the status of the partner, including expulsion.

Mr Flitton said 'the important thing is that [the PRC] is in the partnership agreement'.

He recommended having the sanctions explicit to make it effective, although in practice they are rarely used.

However, he conceded that this approach was not flawless - sometimes, the wrong kind of partner is elected to the PRC, he said, while those on it can be reluctant for humanitarian reasons to take difficult decisions.

He said the PRC works better with younger partners than older lawyers, who often refuse to recognise they have a problem until convinced it is affecting their practices.

Chairing the session, Robert Vineberg, a partner at Canadian firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, said substance abuse is a 'very real problem' in the legal profession, but it was not one that people talked about.

'Alcohol abuse often goes untreated until there's a disaster,' he said.