Georgina Patel1
1Researcher; Independent Consultant; Former Family Law and Criminal Law Lawyer
Biography:
Georgina Patel is a researcher, independent consultant, and a former lawyer who practised in family law and criminal law (Crown prosecutions). Her work focuses on psychosocial risk, wellbeing and effective practice in the legal profession. She led Law in Distress, a national study of lawyers’ work-related distress funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation, and is a Research Associate at Auckland University of Technology. She first researched this area while in practice, in her 2016 LLM (Hons) dissertation at the University of Auckland on indirect trauma among criminal lawyers. She is based in Melbourne, and her research has a trans-Tasman focus.
Abstract:
This presentation draws on Law in Distress, the first large-scale empirical study of how Aotearoa New Zealand lawyers are impacted by work-related distress and indirect trauma. Law in Distress involved a national survey of 379 lawyers and in-depth interviews with 49. As part of the survey, the research team developed a scale to measure moral distress among lawyers, which, to our knowledge, had not been done before. Participants reported high levels of indirect trauma and work-related distress, compounded by heavy workloads, a “never show weakness” culture, and pressures in the wider justice system. Work-related distress among lawyers is a matter of public concern, as it can affect how well lawyers serve their clients and uphold their clients’ rights.
Moral distress was defined as something that can occur “when you believe you know the ethically right thing to do, but something or someone restricts your ability to pursue the right course of action”. For the lawyers in our study, the most distressing moral distress issues were structural and systemic, such as delays and the functioning of the justice system. Structural and systemic change could address many of these issues, but it cannot happen quickly or be achieved by any one organisation. That leaves open the question of how lawyers can best be supported, without shifting the responsibility onto them or resorting to individual resilience as a means of mitigation.