Judges absorb the same material as everyone else in the courtroom, without the release of advocacy and with far fewer places to put it. This page covers what the research actually shows, and how we work with courts.
Most conversations about wellbeing in the legal profession are about lawyers. That makes a certain sense, since there are more of them and they are easier to survey. But the person who hears every case, sees every photograph, and has to stay composed while doing it is sitting at the front of the room, and almost nobody is designing anything for them.
The literature on judges is thinner than the literature on lawyers, and it is worth being straight about that. The studies are small, they are separated by decades, and several are single jurisdiction. What exists, though, is fairly consistent.
A survey of 105 judges by Jaffe and colleagues, published in the Juvenile and Family Court Journal in 2003, found that 63 percent reported one or more symptoms they themselves identified as work related vicarious trauma. Women on the bench reported more symptoms, as did judges with seven or more years of experience. That second finding is the one people tend to miss. This is not something that mostly happens to new judges.
Chamberlain and Miller published a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law in 2009 looking at judges in a single jurisdiction. No judge in the group showed extreme symptoms. Every one of them showed low level symptoms of secondary traumatic stress, safety concerns, burnout, or some combination. Nobody was in crisis. Nobody was fine either.
The largest look at this came in 2019, when Edwards and Miller ran a content analysis of 762 judges' open ended responses to a survey asking whether they had experienced secondary traumatic stress. Judges reported moderate levels across most categories of stress the study measured. The National Judicial College summarized it as nearly half of judges having suffered the condition.
The National Center for State Courts has published on secondary and vicarious trauma among judges and court personnel, and makes the point that matters most for a court administrator: these symptoms affect the decision making process, not only the individual's wellbeing.
A litigator who has spent a day with terrible facts can go back to the office and be furious about it. Advocacy is itself a release. You have a side, you have somewhere to put the feeling, and you have colleagues who were in the room with you.
A judge has none of that. The role requires neutrality, which means the ordinary human response has to be held rather than expressed. It requires distance from the lawyers appearing in front of you, which removes most of the people who would otherwise be your professional peer group. And in smaller jurisdictions it can mean there is nobody within an hour's drive who does your job.
Then there are the constraints nobody outside the judiciary thinks about. Judicial conduct rules shape what a judge can say, where, and to whom. A judge who wants help has to consider whether seeking it could become a matter of public record, and what it would mean for the parties in front of them if it did. Those are not irrational worries and they do not have easy answers.
The result is a group of people with above average exposure and below average access to the ordinary ways human beings process it.
We have taught sitting and retired judges in mixed CLE cohorts, alongside practicing attorneys. It is worth saying what that is like, carefully and without repeating anything said in a room where people expected privacy.
Judges in those rooms describe a level of strain they do not appear to name anywhere else, and frequently say so directly. Some are planning to leave the bench earlier than they intended, and are candid that the reason is the toll rather than the workload or the pay. The coping strategies people have arrived at on their own are private, individual, and sometimes quite unlike anything you would find in a wellbeing policy.
None of this is surprising given the research. It does explain why programming written for law firm associates lands badly with a bench, and why the room has to be genuinely private before anyone says anything true.
Retreats. Multi-day residential programming at our retreat sites, currently in Colorado, California, Illinois, Virginia, Texas, and across Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Washington. Lead time runs six to eighteen months depending on the site and the season, and six months is realistic for most requests.
Conference programming. Sessions and keynotes for judicial conferences and court gatherings, at a conference center local to you.
In house. Delivered in your own training rooms, which is often the practical option for a court that cannot release people for several days.
Open CLE. Individual judges join our accredited cohorts alongside attorneys. Some prefer this precisely because it is not organized by their own court.
Accreditation is applied for per engagement and per jurisdiction, and where something is scheduled far enough ahead we can apply in advance. Judicial education credit varies by state and is worth raising early.
Faculty are drawn from law, the bench, medicine, psychology and coaching, and include a former judge. The underlying material is the neurobiology of stress and repeated exposure, which is not specific to any profession. What changes for a judicial audience is the framing, the examples, and an understanding of the constraints of the role.
Attorney Wellness Project is not a clinical provider. Nothing here is diagnosis or treatment. Where someone needs clinical care, the right route is a lawyer assistance program or a licensed clinician, and we will say so rather than work around it.
In our experience the people who actually make judicial programming happen are court administrators, division directors, administrative officers, conference planning committees, and often a judicial assistant who has watched this build for a while and decided to do something about it. If that is you, the useful first conversation is about format and calendar rather than content. Tell us how many people, how long you can release them for, and how far out you are planning, and we will tell you what fits.
Practical answers for courts and conference organizers.
Both, though the work looks different. Court and conference engagements are booked by the organization, usually through a presiding judge, a court administrator, a division director or an administrative officer. Individual judges also come through open CLE cohorts, where they sit alongside practicing attorneys.
Six to eighteen months, depending on the site and the time of year. Six months is realistic for most requests. Conference sessions and in-house programming can usually be arranged on shorter notice than a residential retreat.
Yes. Programming runs at our retreat sites, at a conference center local to you, or in your own training rooms. The material adapts to the format. Where it is delivered matters less than whether the room is private enough for people to say true things.
No. Attorney Wellness Project is not a clinical provider and does not offer diagnosis or treatment. The work is education and skills training grounded in the neurobiology of stress and trauma exposure. Where someone needs clinical care, the right referral is a lawyer assistance program or a licensed clinician, and we will say so.
CLE accreditation is applied for per engagement and per jurisdiction, and we can apply in advance where a program is scheduled far enough ahead. Judicial education credit works differently from state to state and is worth raising early in the conversation.
Retreat dates book six to eighteen months ahead. If you are planning a judicial conference or thinking about programming for your court, an early conversation costs nothing and makes the scheduling far easier.
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