Lawyers experience very high levels of vicarious trauma and trauma. Even without prior trauma, contact with legal processes is stressful. Hence, lawyers work with highly stressed people. They encounter people, victims and offenders whose lives have been shaped and severely harmed by traumatic events. However, reflective practice skills are entirely
absent in the law curriculum. In the current bachelor’s degree of a lawyer, there is no unit about trauma in clients, nor is there one in self-care. Sustainability was a unit that could be chosen before the bachelor’s degree became a three-year-long course instead of a four-year-long one. It did not cover sustainable justice practices. The postgraduate Diploma of Practical Legal Training (PLT) contains one unit of self-care, which is part of a one-morning
session. The master’s degree does not include any such units. Hence, lawyers, especially those who come to work in Alice Springs, are utterly unprepared for what awaits them. The workplace may provide trauma training. Such training generally does not last longer than a couple of days. The workload is heavy, and lawyers are often expected to perform beyond the call of duty. Burnout in the legal profession is often caused by a lack of boundaries between work and personal life. More than any other profession, the legal culture results in
practitioners working in high-pressure environments with excessive hours, resulting in burnout and mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. A recent study of 200 legal professionals across Australia and New Zealand revealed that 85% of employees suffer from anxiety or know of a colleague who does, while 80% suffer from depression or know of a colleague who does.
There are no specific studies about the mental well-being of the magistrates in the courts of Alice Springs, but a few days of observation in the lower court hammers home the sheer absurdity of the situation. While wearing the wig and the gown, closely resembling the coloniser, magistrates face an endless row of disadvantaged, traumatised, disempowered people of colour and send these people to places where they become even more disadvantaged, traumatised, and disempowered. One can only imagine what this does to a person.
Traditionalists argue that wearing the wig and gown imbues court proceedings with a certain sense of respect and gravitas, promoting formality and maintaining order.
However, opponents say that this form of apparel causes lawyers to appear out of touch with ordinary people and can make people feel intimidated or inferior in court. Others find it outright comical. A 2003 survey of 360 members of the public conducted by the Law Institute of Victoria found that 54% believed that wigs and robes should still be worn in court. There are no studies I could find that looked into what it feels like to resemble the brutal coloniser in dress and hairstyle.
In his 2017 Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation Sydney Lecture, David Heilpern shared his challenges and insights regarding vicarious trauma, PTSD, fatigue, the inability to recognise problems and reluctance to seek help. He raised six core issues that need to be addressed to “lift the judicial veil” on the serious mental health issues affecting judicial officers: modern technology, decision fatigue, viewing emotion as bad, intellect as good, security threats; the loneliness of the job; and the need for more research on mental health issues and the judiciary, along with remedies. He mentions that, in the same year, there was a Law Report titled Is practising criminal law bad for your mental health?”
On ABC Radio National. Peter McGrath SC, a vastly experienced criminal barrister, spoke of a particularly distressing sexual assault case:
…during the trial, I can remember different stages, at one stage the officer in charge was giving evidence before the jury and just burst out crying in the witness box and couldn't
go on, and we had to adjourn. At another time, the judge’s associate, and she was a very experienced woman who had seen a lot of trials, she was unable to come into court, we had
to adjourn because she was very affected. At one point the court officer, who was a crusty old fellow who had been in so many cases and heard it all, he was … we couldn’t start the call one morning and where was he, he was in the corner of the anteroom and he was just sitting on his chair and weeping and shaking his head and saying, “Those poor boys, those poor boys.” And I was thinking, God, who’s next?
“Someone is missing from his description. The judge. What was he or she feeling? How was the judge dealing with all this evidence that he or she would need to rule on?
“We ought to stop talking of judicial stress and start calling it for what it is — anxiety, panic
attack, insomnia, traumatic response, depression, PTSD, substance use disorder and the like.”
“According to the most recent research, 33% of solicitors and 20% of barristers suffer from disability and distress due to depression. They tend not to seek help and often
self-medicate with alcohol. Given that judicial officers are almost exclusively drawn from the ranks of the profession, it would be a reasonable conclusion that a significant number of judicial officers suffer from debilitating mental health issues during their time on the bench. There is a veil based on assumptions regarding judicial officers. The sooner that veil is lifted, the sooner judicial officers can admit to difficulties, access help and better serve the
community.”
“For country magistrates, the sheer volume of traumatic work is hard for those outside the criminal justice system to comprehend. We are also coroners, and I will often spend my lunch time running through gruesome evidence and reading suicide notes. Responses to trauma for judicial officers are often cumulative and exponential. Modern technology has made the trauma much more “in your face”. Real violence is now captured on CCTV,
smart phones, in-car-videos and DVEC’s.”
In the lower court, there is no jury, and thus the magistrates alone must determine guilt or innocence based on the evidence of the victim and the defendant. That means they must assess the truthfulness of the witnesses carefully. This involves, “getting inside the head” of both. This requires a determined focus and concentration,and this level of absorption makes vicarious trauma unsurprising. They cannot just listen dispassionately to the evidence; they have to digest and ruminate on each morsel and judge the people before them.
“This is a level of intimacy, for want of a better word, that perhaps fills the sponge more rapidly than one would expect.” The relationship between decision fatigue and
vicarious trauma is entirely unresearched. There is a good chance that each exponentially affects the other. Throughout their education, their practice and their role as judicial officers, magistrates are taught to suppress their emotions in a quest for apparent objectivity. It is perhaps time to recognise that the expression of emotion is not the opposite of administering justice. Judicial officers are humans, not automatons, and suppressing emotion every day is a recipe for fragile mental health.
One great fear among judicial officers is that if they have a mental health issue, they could lose their appointment. They must be physically and mentally fit to exercise the functions of a judicial office efficiently.
Security threats are inherently traumatic experiences, and many judicial officers experience a significant number of these over the years. These threats pose a real danger to the mental health of judicial officers for obvious reasons, and it is challenging to separate hyper-vigilance from realistic precautions. The job can feel exceptionally lonely, despite the collegiate nature of the bench. There are limits on social life. Many judicial officers work in single courts and are away from loved ones for days or weeks. This way of life offers little opportunity for informal talk therapy or debriefing that can empty the sponge."
Clearly, there needs to be more research into mental health issues and the judiciary in Australia. The particular focus should be on the following issues:
• What are the current rates of vicarious trauma/PTSD in Australian judicial officers?
• When does the issue become more acute?
• Is there a relationship between judicial officers sitting alone and in country courts and increased levels of PTSD?
• What percentage of disciplinary matters involving judicial officers have an underlying mental health issue? For lawyers, it is reportedly 80%.
• Is there evidence to support the hypothesis that an annual “mental health” check-up for judicial officers would be of assistance?
• Does it help to opt out of certain types of cases for a time?
• What are the most effective methods of increasing resilience — mentoring, education, buddying, debriefing, supervision?
Image: Sydney Criminal Lawyers, Mental Health in the Legal Profession
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