Towards a context-specific approach to understanding lawyers’ well-being: a synthesis review and future research agenda

The privilege and the pressure: judges’ and magistrates’ reflections on the sources and impacts of stress in judicial work

“…Indeed, in a recent international survey of judicial officers from over 90 countries (Global Judicial Integrity Network, 2022 ), workload was the most endorsed judicial stressor by judges globally. Workload is also among the most prominent sources of stress identified by lawyers (Bergin & Jimmieson, 2014 ; Cadieux et al., 2022 ; Soon et al., 2023 ) and other professionals (Bhui et al., 2016 ). Our study extends the existing knowledge by confirming that workload is perceived as the primary judicial stressor at all levels of the court system, and offering a more granular insight into the qualitatively different experience of workload pressure at each of those levels.…”

“…This suggests a point of distinction between the judiciary and the rest of the legal profession; in the latter, mental illness, especially depression, appears to be a pervasive and entrenched occupational hazard (Chan et al., 2014 ; Krill et al., 2016 ; Soon et al., 2023 ). The reasons behind this observed difference between the judiciary and practising lawyers have not been directly explored, but (consistent with most models of occupational stress: Ganster & Rosen, 2013 ; Lemke et al., 2023 ; Sharit & Salvendy, 1982 ) they likely include some combination of work and individual factors.…”