Koffel Law offers an area of professional services they call Preventative
Law. The team is led by recently retired Judge Scott VanDerKarr, who set
up and ran a drug court, a mental health court, a veterans court, and
a heroin court. This team, which included resource coordinator Diane Hack
Davis and attorney Will Nesbitt, provided us with the best of all worlds
during a recent terrifying and heartbreaking time.
When a loved one is in crisis from a substance use disorder, addicted
to an illegal drug and its inevitable consequences, the family will most
likely find themselves needing legal and criminal law help, consultation
through the options, and strategic and logistical help, as well as finding
next step resources, all of which the Preventative Law team readily provided,
drawing on both their experience in the court systems and resource coordinator
Diane Hack Davis’ experience coordinating with detoxification and
rehabilitation facilities around the country. The attorney on our team,
Will Nesbitt, made everything with the courts happen smoothly, keeping
us informed every step of the way. Add to that some “hand-holding”
by all of them via late night texts, emails and phone calls, and even
a last minute weekend late-night meeting with the person suffering with
the addiction, offering reassurance and personal encouragement, and we
had everything we needed to turn the situation around,
none of which we could have done on our own. The fact that it all had to happen in an extremely narrow window of time
adds to our appreciation of everyone with whom we’ve had contact
with at Koffel Law.
Their nearly immediate response to inquiries and events communicates to
me that they understand the anxiety, fear and trauma the client is probably
experiencing. Even though the actual issue and action needed may be routine
or easy to maneuver for them, their response time shows respect to the
client, and acknowledges it is often anything but routine to those of
us finding ourselves in a world of legal entanglement. All of our many
questions have been, and continued to be, answered clearly and kindly.
It is obvious to us that Scott VanDerKarr, as well as the others at Koffel
Law, are ardently dedicated to helping those affected by this country’s
very real opioid crisis. Instead of trying to jail our way out of the
disease of addiction, VanDerKarr and Koffel Law helps people get into
a situation in which they can help themselves, rebuild their lives, and
become who they are meant to be.