The lawyer-turned-author, who recently released her memoir, Eggshell Skull, is uniquely placed — both from personal experience and having had a front-row seat to court processes — to say how much of an impact vicarious trauma can have.

All law students will have to read “awful cases” and be exposed to gory themes and ideas, she said, but when they’re in court looking directly into the faces of prospective jury members, and telling a judge they need to be excused from a trial for reason of proximity to certain offences — not to mention seeing victims tell their stories — it can have a deleterious impact upon a young lawyer.

“It’s a level of immediacy that makes one really struggle to compartmentalise … you just can’t put distance between it,” she explained.

“It’s not fiction, it’s not just words on a page, and when you’re in trials and someone is just a few metres away giving evidence, I don’t know how you’re supposed to not be affected by that. I found it really difficult.”

Unfortunately for Ms Lee — whose childhood abuse heightened her need to combat vicarious trauma in her job — she found “the support infrastructure [offered to judges’ associates] was completely useless”.

“They told us we had three free anonymous counselling sessions, and when I tried to book one in, they didn’t have any times outside of office hours, and they didn’t have any women available outside of office hours,” she recounted.

“They told me they could give me a slip to take to my judge to ask permission to take time out of court to go see a counsellor. There are so many levels of absurdity to that.”

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And while she cedes that law students in class, and lawyers working as judicial associates in court, will have to hear and read certain content, she said there are still ways that those individuals can be better protected.

“It would have made a difference [when I was a judge’s associate] to have specific training culturally and collectively recognise that some of content we heard was not normal, and that it was normal to be affected by it,” she argued.

Not only this, but severe lack of funding and resources means that exposure to such material is incessant, she noted.

“At all stages — policing, prosecution, court — child sexual offence processes are underfunded and under-resourced, meaning people in certain roles are undertrained, and we had to deal with such a vast quantity of particularly horrific cases, and it was relentless.”

Reflecting on her time in law, Ms Lee expressed frustration at the number of talented young lawyers who do not feel supported enough by the profession to stay. Better protections against vicarious trauma are, she feels, paramount not only for optimal wellbeing, but also workplace success.

“I think it’s absurd that the system doesn’t recognise that having happier employees, who can last longer, is a huge economic incentive,” she said.

“I think they’re losing a lot of really great young talent by refusing to deal with this elephant in the room.”

For the law students and lawyers of tomorrow who will be dealing with traumatic case material, she suggests talking to a professional before any problems arise, as she knows better than most that exposure to such material is “probably going to be an issue”.

“If you are able to take the time to check in with yourself, you can tell if unpleasant symptoms are starting to emerge. Talking about it and figuring out what your unique coping mechanisms might be before things get really bad could have saved me so much,” she concluded.

“But I would also say that I was very fortunate to have a supportive partner, great friends and parents. And, honestly, in hindsight I did not lean on them as much as I could have and should have, because I was still trying keep my chin up.”

“Most people I know would be pleasantly surprised at how much they can call someone, but don’t.”

Photo credit: Alana Potts