The role of employers in preventing vicarious trauma in law

At the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, staff routinely engage with trauma-impacted people and traumatic content. “Our people are exposed to family violence, child abuse, sexual violence, migration issues like exploitation and trafficking, as well as discrimination in the workplace. These are features in the vast majority of matters coming before the courts,” explains Hayley Foster, director of family violence and director of access, equity and inclusion.

Given the nature of the work, it’s perhaps no surprise that vicarious trauma – indirect exposure to other people’s trauma such that it has the same harmful effect on mental health as experiencing trauma directly – is an ever-present threat for court staff.

“It’s just constant exposure at this high level, and we can’t look away because we have to be exacting in examining the evidence before us in the courts to be able to make the appropriate decisions that are safe and in the interests of justice. Vicarious trauma is a critical issue,” Foster says.

To prevent and mitigate the impact of vicarious trauma, the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia has implemented a comprehensive range of measures, including formal training, revised supervision practices, limiting exposure to traumatic content and strengthening the employee assistance program.

“The volume of family violence matters, in particular, is substantial, and having this specialisation pushed us to really care for our people who are doing that high-intensity, highly traumatic work,” Foster says.

Amid significant changes to the legislative and legal landscape, it’s part of a wider push across the profession to tackle vicarious trauma – not just as a personal mental health concern, but as a critical organisational issue that employers have a responsibility to address.

Shift in employer responsibility

Vicarious trauma is the emotional and psychological strain that comes from repeated exposure to the trauma of others, often through work or relationships. It can lead to feelings of sadness, anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion, as well as difficulty concentrating, intrusive thoughts related to the trauma, and poor decision-making abilities. Professional consequences can include burnout, decreased job satisfaction and impaired job performance. If left unaddressed, the cumulative impact of vicarious trauma can lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Frontline services and helping professions, such as healthcare workers, social workers, emergency services and first responders are at particular risk. For lawyers, repeatedly engaging with highly distressed clients and other people who have been affected by trauma and cumulative exposure to graphic descriptions of violence, exploitation, horror, crime or cruelty can lead to vicarious trauma.

“Any legal professional who’s being exposed to trauma in that way is at risk,” explains Bernadette Hughes, a counselling psychologist with more than 15 years’ experience providing vicarious trauma training and supervision to legal professionals.

US research estimates the prevalence of vicarious trauma among lawyers is between 9% and 11%. Hughes says practitioners working in family law, criminal law, child protection, immigration and personal injury are especially vulnerable.

Much of the advice offered informally and in professional development sessions has traditionally centred on strategies lawyers can apply themselves, such as stress management and limiting exposure to triggers. But there is growing recognition that employers have a responsibility to prevent and manage exposure to traumatic events and material in legal workplaces.

Two recent events have been catalysts for this change. In the 2022 landmark case Kozarov v Victoria, the High Court ruled that employers must create a safe work environment and take steps to prevent or mitigate vicarious trauma, even if no warning signs of mental illness are present. Then in 2023, federal legislation began mandating employers to manage psychosocial hazards in the workplace.

“There’s been a big shift in terms of acknowledgement of the impacts of vicarious trauma in law. We’ve had an increase in the regulatory framework around it from common law and also from a workplace health and safety perspective,” says Dr Ros Lethbridge, senior clinical specialist at Phoenix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health and a former lawyer.

Hughes says managing vicarious trauma is a shared responsibility between individual practitioners and organisations.

Policies, training and limiting exposure

Some law firms and employers are beginning to take action on vicarious trauma by introducing staff and leadership training, setting clear policies, building peer support networks and improving access to support services – recommendations listed in a 2024 discussion paper on vicarious trauma in the legal profession prepared for the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner by Phoenix Australia and co-authored by Dr Lethbridge.

At the Victorian Office of Public Prosecution (OPP), where murder, manslaughter, sexual offences and other serious crimes are prosecuted, staff are regularly exposed to traumatic material, prompting the organisation to implement targeted measures to reduce the risk of vicarious trauma.

Wellbeing manager Felicite Flynn says training is a key area of focus. “At induction, people are provided with training around understanding vicarious trauma, what the risks are and encouraging early help seeking behaviours and self-care strategies,” she explains.

“Then we have further training for managers, and for people who have been working in their roles for quite some time so that those skills and capabilities are reinforced time and time again throughout their working careers.”

Limiting unnecessary exposure to potentially traumatic material is another priority, which was identified in the discussion paper as the most effective strategy for minimising vicarious trauma.

“It’s having a systemic approach to underlying issues such as the allocation of certain files, and really thinking about the work that people are undertaking and how those allocations happen,” Flynn says, explaining that while exposure to graphic material has greatly reduced, where viewing is necessary, staff are encouraged to take short recovery breaks and instructed to stop if they experience distress.

Foster highlights the need to better protect junior staff from unnecessary exposure to traumatic content. “Junior staff prepare a lot of materials for our judicial officers, and they’re exposed to some pretty traumatic content. We’re working to limit or manage that exposure when it’s unnecessary to look into the detail of things.”

Indeed, Hughes says there is some evidence to suggest that people are at greater risk of vicarious trauma early in their career. “It may be because they have yet to develop strategies to manage vicarious trauma or build competence around their role.”

Foster says managing exposure is part of an overarching approach to build the capacity of leaders. “We’ve been working with the leadership teams to make sure that they are equipped to lead trauma-informed teams. That’s a big piece, because then you can start talking about the policy, work allocation, and mitigating and reducing unnecessary exposure.”

Small and big employers alike

Small law firms, too, are recognising the onus has shifted to organisations to prevent and mitigate vicarious trauma. At Garling & Co, a Sydney-based personal injury firm with 10 staff, a growing emotional burden from dealing with clients’ traumatic experiences prompted a change in approach.

“We recognise that many of our clients are in a significant amount of pain. But it is also important for us to recognise what our teams are having to listen to and what they’re having to read and look at when they’re dealing with those cases,” explains marketing director Kylie Gill.

The firm implemented a comprehensive training program focused on risk identification, management strategies and approaches for handling challenging conversations.

“We’ve done quite a lot of training around how we can be compassionate without it leading to empathetic strain, so trying not to take that strain on board and having boundaries around what we can do,” Gill says.

She says feedback from staff has been “amazing” and overwhelmingly in favour of the new approach. “I would say 100 per cent, there’s no downside, there’s no risk. It works well for everyone.”

Likewise, Flynn cites an “upward trajectory of our wellbeing indicators” among OPP staff as a result of the changes. Foster believes the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia is “leading in this space”. “We recruit our registrars and judges from the profession, and they are remarking to us that we are ahead of the pack.”

She notes that addressing vicarious trauma is not only important for wellbeing, but critical for performance and the integrity of the justice system. “We want to promote wellbeing, but it’s also about performance, about having good evidence before the court and delivering just outcomes. We’re not equipped to deliver trauma-informed practice in the work that we’re doing if we’re not managing and mitigating the impacts of vicarious trauma on ourselves,” Foster says.

Combating mental health stigma

Despite growing awareness, mental health stigma continues to lurk in the background as a persistent barrier to managing vicarious trauma. In many legal environments, high pressure, competition and perfectionism discourage the expression of vulnerability.

Dr Lethbridge says factors like these can impede organisational progress, especially when practitioners harbour unrealistic high standards and believe they “should be able to tough it out and if you can’t you’re not meant to be practicing law”.

“We’re slowly moving past that badge-of-honour aspect, but there are still elements of it that came out in our consultations, particularly among more senior members of the profession,” she says.

Flynn believes that an organisation’s culture plays a crucial role in breaking down mental health stigma, helping to normalise conversations about vicarious trauma. “We can start to shift the narrative to it being a strength to have those conversations as opposed to a weakness.”

In fact, the evidence shows that one of the most effective strategies for managing vicarious trauma is social support. “That means fostering a supportive culture of mental health where you can talk openly about mental health, and also that there’s good team cohesion and social connections between people,” Dr Lethbridge says, noting that peer support networks can be implemented within organisations or between practitioners with similar roles.

Ultimately, experts agree that employers across the profession will need to take proactive, sustained action to protect staff from vicarious trauma. “It won’t be possible just to cite that you can’t afford to do it. Organisations are going to have to do it to fall within the legislation,” Dr Lethbridge says.

Hughes says from her experience “there seems to be genuine interest in practically managing the risk, which is a really welcome shift.”

Dr Lethbridge agrees: “Organisational strategies and a bi-directional approach to managing vicarious trauma are super important in the legal context. I feel very optimistic about the direction that we’re moving in.”