Vicarious Trauma in the Legal Profession: Addressing a Growing Challenge

Vicarious trauma is a term that has become increasingly common in the legal profession in recent years. It's not surprising: the psychological toll on lawyers and other legal professionals of vicarious trauma, a condition arising from indirect exposure to the traumatic experiences of others, is enormous – and often invisible.

As a corporate finance lawyer, my experience was devoid of vicarious trauma. I worked on clinical, massive financial transactions between lenders and large corporations.

However, for many legal professionals, whether working in family law, criminal law, employment law or other disciplines, vicarious trauma is almost an inevitable aspect of their working lives. The consequences of this vicarious trauma for individuals, but also firms, clients, the sector and society as a result, are profound.

This article aims to explore what vicarious trauma is, contributing factors specific to the legal sector, and opportunities that exist for leaders and the sector as a whole to better address vicarious trauma.

Understanding Vicarious Trauma

Medical doctor and global trauma expert Gabor Maté defines trauma as the psychic wound resulting from the inability to process a stressful event. Maté believes that trauma manifests as a source of pain and fear that drives (often unhelpful) behaviours and contributes to an array of illnesses.

Vicarious trauma, in turn, is not our own direct experience of trauma. Rather, it refers to the cumulative and harmful psychological effects we experience because of empathic engagement with the traumatic experiences of others. For lawyers and other members of the legal profession this might include exposure to graphic images, recordings, testimonials, case files detailing violence or exploitation, and interactions – including meetings and interviews – with clients who have endured trauma.

The Impact of Vicarious Trauma

Symptoms of vicarious trauma are wide-ranging. They can include hypervigilance, avoidant behaviours, feelings of hopelessness or emotional numbness, sleeping difficulties and changes in cognition and mood. These symptoms can drastically impair functioning at work and beyond.

From an organisational perspective, unacknowledged vicarious trauma can drive reduced job satisfaction and engagement. It can lead to higher turnover, with people leaving the organisation, if not the profession. Vicarious trauma is of particular concern for the not for profit and community legal sectors, where resources to mitigate its impact and reduce staff exposure are often scarce.

Vicarious trauma is distinct from related concepts such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury. However, it can overlap with one or more of these, making the experience often complex and multifaceted. For example, someone experiencing vicarious trauma may be more susceptible to burnout due to the increased levels of chronic work-related stress they are under.

Vicarious trauma in the legal profession requires urgent attention. Many legal professionals go through prolonged and repeated exposure to vicarious trauma, particularly in high-risk areas like family and criminal law, and high-risk organisations like community legal centres. The need for awareness and improved support arises in part due to the severe ramifications vicarious trauma has at individual, organisational and sector levels. However, the unique and central role of the judicial system in the smooth functioning of broader society makes acknowledging and addressing the impact of vicarious trauma on legal professionals a critical priority.

High-Risk Roles and Factors Contributing to Vulnerability

Certain practice areas and types of organisations are at elevated risk of vicarious trauma within the legal profession. As noted, as a corporate banking and finance lawyer, I did not deal with clients in trauma and was thus not exposed to vicarious trauma. In contrast, criminal lawyers, whether in defence or prosecution roles, are frequently exposed to distressing materials such as autopsy photos, digital footage of violent crimes, and victim impact statements.

Similarly, family lawyers, who may deal with cases involving child protection and family violence, migration lawyers whose clients may include refugees and asylum seekers fleeing their war-torn home, and community legal services working with vulnerable populations, can experience significant exposure. Speaking with a client who has experienced domestic violence in order to gather evidence, for example, can have a significant impact on individual wellbeing. Doing so day in day out can make that impact severe.

Personal factors that influence vulnerability to vicarious trauma can include a person’s tenure in the field, with those practicing longer showing greater symptom severity. A person’s own trauma history can contribute, as can factors such as high empathy, and difficulty expressing feelings.

Organisational factors also play a critical role, with smaller firms, community centres and sole practitioners often facing greater challenges due to limited resources, lower awareness, and fewer support mechanisms. Legal centres in regional and rural communities have these challenges exacerbated by the sheer remoteness and isolation of these populations.

Poor workplace culture and unsupportive leadership can have a compounding effect. When people are experiencing vicarious trauma, but also have an overwhelming workload, a lack of flexibility, low psychological safety, and unsupportive management, this unnecessarily exacerbates its impact. In turn, this causes detrimental outcomes to individuals and teams, as well as the flow on effect to clients and the legal system itself.

Strategies to Reduce Vicarious Trauma Risk

While vicarious trauma cannot be completely eradicated in the legal profession, it is imperative that we contemplate means of reducing its incidence, and its impact. This requires a two-pronged approach, as (1) individuals take responsibility for their own mental health and wellbeing, while at the same time (2) leaders and organisations work to ensure an optimally sustainable work environment and a psychosocially safe workplace.

Particularly with the introduction and expansion of legislation and regulation in various Australian jurisdictions in relation to employer obligations to mitigate psychosocial hazards, leaders have an increasing onus to ensure organisational factors do not cause further harm to those in an already challenging profession. 

Current interventions fall within four strategic domains: Prevent, Prepare, Respond, and Recover.

1. Prevent involves minimising unnecessary exposure to traumatic material. Practices include restricting access to sensitive files, employing file tagging or classification systems, and controlling the dissemination of graphic content. Senior legal staff often serve as gatekeepers to buffer junior or support staff from direct exposure.

2. Prepare focuses on equipping legal professionals with knowledge and skills to safely manage exposure. This includes targeted training, mental health awareness campaigns, and embedding trauma-informed policies within organisations. Preparation also involves managerial training to create informed and supportive leadership.

3. Respond entails protective practices while engaging with traumatic material, mostly encouraged at the individual level. These include scheduling exposure during optimal times, maintaining boundaries between work and personal life, using self-regulation techniques, and taking regular breaks. The B R N T framework ©  can form a helpful guide to ensuring a baseline of wellbeing when navigating work that involves potential vicarious trauma. However, in most organisations, formal training on such strategies is limited and needs to be expanded.

4. Recover strategies aim at supporting legal professionals post-exposure. Peer debriefing, wellbeing check-ins with psychologists, reflective practice groups, and access to employee assistance programs (EAPs) play key roles. Structured rotations away from high-trauma cases and fostering healthy boundaries around work and non-work aspects of life also contribute to recovery. However, it’s worth noting that smaller organisations, community legal centres and firms in remote locations often lack capacity to implement these kind of methods effectively.

Barriers and Professional Cultural Challenges

Despite increasing awareness and limited progress, the legal profession faces substantial barriers to effectively managing vicarious trauma. For many, ‘vicarious trauma’ is a buzzword and while awareness is important, it does not solve the issue of itself.

Further, cultural barriers are deeply entrenched in the profession, characterised by a ‘harden up’ mentality valuing toughness and stoicism. The prevailing culture across the legal profession in Australia discourages vulnerability and open discussion about mental health, intensifying stigma. Concerns about confidentiality, career repercussions, and the perception that seeking help implies weakness deter many in the legal profession from accessing support. Professional hierarchies and economic factors make it difficult if not impossible for many lawyers to meaningfully prioritise their own mental health.

Systemic and Organisational Opportunities for Improvement

A recent paper by Phoenix Australia outlines a comprehensive, integrated organisational approach to mitigating vicarious trauma risks for legal organisations. At the systemic level, several opportunities emerge:

• Enhance education about vicarious trauma at law schools and through ongoing professional development programs, ensuring early and preventative awareness.

• Set industry standards and minimum competencies for leadership related to staff wellbeing and vicarious trauma management.

• Promote leadership behaviours, through targeted training and development, that model openness and prioritise mental health.

• Provide robust and regular trainings to all lawyers and support staff about vicarious trauma to foster awareness.

• Offer frequent, expert stress management and burnout prevention programs to reduce stigma, increase awareness, create a common language within the team or organisation, and embed behaviours that contribute to improved mental health and wellbeing.

• Implement trauma-informed practices across the legal system to better manage traumatised clients and reduce retraumatisation.

• Standardise file management protocols to classify and manage access to distressing material uniformly.

• Encourage cross-agency collaboration among legal, governmental, and professional bodies to share best practices and resources.

• Advocate for improved mental health support services, including free or affordable counselling, robust peer networks, and regular wellbeing check-ins that reduce stigma.

A Call to Action

Legal professionals in high-exposure roles frequently encounter the traumatic experiences of others, placing them at risk for vicarious trauma – a condition with significant personal and professional consequences. While a number of prevention and mitigation strategies exist at individual and organisational levels, barriers rooted in culture, resource constraints, and systemic issues inhibit meaningful impact.

A significant effort needs to be made by leaders in the legal profession to understand, acknowledge, and address vicarious trauma. A concerted effort is required to integrate evidence-informed approaches spanning prevention through recovery, as well as systemic reforms and cultural change. Legal organisations, senior practitioners, and regulators have a shared responsibility to build safer workplaces that protect mental health, foster wellbeing, and sustain a resilient legal workforce prepared for the complexities of trauma-exposed work.

By acting on these opportunities, the legal sector can better support its people, enhancing both professional effectiveness and personal wellbeing in service of justice.

Reference: Lethbridge et al., "Vicarious Trauma in the Legal Profession: Discussion Paper," Phoenix Australia – Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, 2024.