Dr Nina Hudson1, Dr Jennifer Schulz Moore2
1Independent / Tasmania Law Reform Institute (TLRI), University of Tasmania / Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (PPL), Belair, Australia, 2University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Biography:
Dr Nina Hudson is a socio-legal and law reform researcher, with expertise in criminal, sentencing, coronial and family violence laws, criminology, legal professional wellbeing, and communication within the law. Nina is a Senior Research Fellow (TLRI, UTAS) and an independent research consultant, with a primary and specialist focus on delivering education and developing resources for judicial officers focusing on voice and language in legal and courtroom communications. She is also the research consultant for the Tasmanian Sentencing Advisory Council’s update project on sentencing young people. Nina has been on the Psychiatry, Psychiatry and Law editorial team since 2016.
Abstract:
The wellbeing of legal professionals and the impacts of work-related stress and exposure to trauma in the workplace are increasingly topics of focus in research and practice. Further, ‘ill-being’ in the legal profession is increasingly well-recognised and has manifested in psychological distress, high rates of depression compared with other professions and, sometimes, suicide. Growing research examining these phenomena has identified that although personal factors are important to consider, structural and organisational factors play a significant role. For example, Maker et al, 2026 identified various system-level issues influencing decisions to enter and remain in criminal legal practice, placing the system under significant strain. Structural and organisational factors are therefore critical to our understanding of how systems can contribute to ill-being in the workplace and what changes or strategies are needed as preventative mechanisms to create safer workplaces, support the maintenance of wellbeing and function as the building blocks for resilience. This presentation focuses on adversarialism as a systemic feature of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand legal systems, presenting key findings from existing research examining wellbeing and stress of legal professionals working in adversarial systems. It will identify how adversarial features of legal systems and practices have been conceptualised as factors relevant to work-related stress, ill-being and suicide, and the trajectory of these concepts through the career life-course from law student, to legal practitioner and to judicial officer. Further, it critically examines recommendations for change in this context and identifies future research directions that support safety for legal professionals and the public.