faculty focus campusreview. com. au
The redress for stress
Legal eagles gather to discuss ways to keep law school and the whole profession from being‘ toxic’ for participants.
Stephen Tang interviewed by Andrew Bracey
The annual National Wellness for Law Forum, staged recently by the Australian National University, aims to counter the potentially damaging psychological effects of studying and practising within the profession.
One of the keynote speakers at the event was Justice Shane Marshall, a Federal Court judge of about 20 years who has suffered with depression and has spoken publicly about the challenges the sector poses. In a recent interview, Marshall described the pressures of the legal profession as“ toxic”.
Forum organiser, lawyer, psychologist and lecturer at the ANU Legal Workshop, Stephen Tang, spoke with Campus Review about the role the profession – including law schools – can play in helping to manage the wellbeing of law students, and current efforts to stop young and aspiring lawyers from falling through the cracks.
CR: What do you hope to achieve through these forums?
ST: We are trying to press the issue from a holistic perspective. We bring together, in a collegial and friendly environment, teachers, researchers, practitioners, judges
Stephen Tang Photo: Tim Grainger / ANU
and a whole bunch of people involved in law. We try to look at the issue not so much from a siloed perspective just in law schools or in practice but [ by asking ] which issues across the entire span of learning to be a law student, training to be a lawyer and being a lawyer go to the issue of wellness and distress.
What are the key factors that exacerbate anxiety or stress? There are a number of things, and I think we have moved slightly away from trying to identify specific causes because we know law students are part of a broader university population and we know many students experience high levels of anxiety or stress [ as do ] most professional workers in unrelated fields. We are looking at common and specific factors. They include some of the ways in which law is taught and some of the expectations about law.
[ At law school ], you bring in a whole bunch of people who are extremely talented and extremely smart. Most come in with genuine social justice motivations and then law school teaches them quickly that the study of law is not about justice, it’ s about technical rationality of rules – and it does this in a competitive environment. That can be quite destructive for many students.
When some of those initial motivations are taken away … suddenly power and money and success start to creep in. It can make [ law school ] a cold, sterile place. That is something many law schools have already started to address. We are starting to hear some great success stories in terms of the way people are teaching.
Often the idea of lawyers having feelings might be used as a punchline though, right? That’ s right. Things like empathy and emotional intelligence are crucial parts of studying law and being a lawyer. At the moment, you say these things to lot of people and they laugh but I think [ the idea ] is starting to take hold.
My message is that you need to be well yourself and know yourself and be psychologically healthy. [ That is a ] crucial part of what is ultimately a profession about helping others.
Justice Marshall was first diagnosed with depression in 2008. Has much improved in terms of acceptance, assistance and approach since then? There has certainly been some cultural shift in terms of recognising the importance of psychological wellbeing, and that has taken shape across the law profession and in law schools and legal education. There are now best practice guidelines about psychological wellbeing.
There is generally a lot more attention from day one in law school on how we make sure our students are healthy and well and able to study well.
Organisations such as the Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation have released best practice guidelines, mainly for legal firms but also all kinds of other organisations, about promoting a psychologically healthy workplace culture and … uptake of those has been encouraging.
But I think there is still a lot of resistance out there.
What role can universities play in countering that resistance? As education providers, we need to realise we have a duty to our students to teach them firstly in a way that is not destructive, that promotes their wellbeing and is mindful of the psychological effects of what we teach and how we teach it. Universities do a lot of great research in this area; I am involved in a number of projects with a lot of students and young lawyers, so we are trying to understand the issue from an academic [ standpoint ], but also in a professional and practical way that helps develop good policy guidelines and further understanding of the issues both nationally and internationally. n
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