Meet the LCL Staff: Members / About LCL / Activity / History / Video / Donations

Minnesota Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (MNLCL) operates with a volunteer board of directors, an executive director and an assistant to the director.

Joan Bibelhausen is Executive Director of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers. Joan received her J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and has significant additional training in the areas of counseling, mental health and addiction, diversity, employment issues and management. She has spent more than two decades working with lawyers who are at a crossroads because of mental illness and addiction concerns as well as work/life balance, stress and related issues. 

Joan is a member of the MN State Bar Association, Hennepin and Ramsey County and American Bar Associations, and MN Women Lawyers, among others. She currently serves on the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs (CoLAP), chairs CoLAP’s Education Committee and is on its Conference Planning and Judicial Resource Committees.  She has chaired the MSBA Life and the Law Committee and the HCBA Solo and Small Firm Practice Section and has co-chaired the HCBA Diversity Committee. Joan also served on the MSBA Board of Governors and HCBA's Strategic Planning and Leadership Institute task forces. She has developed and presented numerous CLE and other programs and has written on mental health and addiction, career and life balance and satisfaction, stress, diversity, marketing and other issues of concern to the legal profession.

Contact Joan.

Diane Markel, MS, LADC, joined LCL as a Case Manager in 2009. Diane received her BA in Social Welfare from University of Mary, Bismarck, ND. After working as a social worker at ND State Hospital for two years, she received her MS in Addiction Counseling at ND State University, Fargo, ND. Diane comes to us after working the last nine years at Hazelden Foundation, Center City, MN.

Diane has worked in the addiction field as an outpatient counselor, intake counselor, family counselor, continuing care counselor and recovery coach. She has developed and implemented several addiction programs, including two inpatient Family Programs, an Outpatient Day Treatment Program, the addiction component of a Dual Diagnosis Outpatient Program, and two Family Continuing Care groups.

Emil Jalonen, MA, JD, LADC, began his second stint on the LCL staff in May, 2012 as a part time case manager. Emil has been involved with LCL for many years, previously serving on the board and on staff as he shepherded LCL through its transition to a full Lawyer Assistance Program. Emil received a B.A. in Economics with a minor in Philosophy from U.M.D, and both an M.A. in Industrial Relations and a J.D. from the southern campus.

Emil worked as staff attorney for labor unions before starting his solo practice, which he still operates on a part time basis. Emil became a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor in 2002. For over eight (8) years he coordinated the Residential Evaluation Program at Hazelden Foundation in Center City and was instrumental in the establishment of Hazelden’s legal professionals track.

Annette Erbst joined Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers as its Administrative Assistant in 2008. Annette has an A.S. in Accounting, an A.S. in Management, as well as significant additional training in nonprofit technology.