Kansas Lawyers Assistance Program director named

TOPEKA—Wichita attorney Wallace W. Underhill has been appointed executive director of the Kansas Lawyers Assistance Program (KALAP), a rehabilitation program for attorneys and law students struggling with mental illness, substance abuse or emotional distress, it was announced in Topeka today.

Underhill was appointed to the position by the Kansas Supreme Court, which established the lawyer assistance program in 2001. He succeeds Wayne Hundley, Topeka, who served as interim director upon the death of Donald Zemites, KALAP’s first director.

The program is governed by the Kansas Lawyers Assistance Commission, a volunteer board made up of 11 lawyers from around the state appointed by the Kansas Supreme Court.

Underhill has been in private practice since 1973 and a court-appointed mediator and case manager serving Butler, Reno, Sedgwick, and Sumner counties since 2005. He was an assistant Sdgwick County district attorney from 1970 to 1973.

He is a 1967 graduate of Kansas Wesleyan University and a 1970 graduate of the University Kansas School of Law.