Layers of Emotion and Judicial Identities: Preliminary Findings from a National Survey

Judicial work is saturated with emotion, especially in court, and especially in the lower courts. Judicial officers experience heavy caseloads and report feeling emotionally overloaded, underappreciated and frustrated in their everyday work. Emotional overload arises from the emotional content of cases, interacting with parties and witnesses, and limited opportunities to debrief. They also report feelings of job satisfaction, enjoyment of the intrinsic dimensions of judicial work and pride in their performance. They indicate strategies for managing their own emotions and those of other participants in the interactional context of courtroom work. A new national survey (the Judicial Wellbeing Survey) investigates the psychological impact of the judicial role and work environment. Conducted in 2023, it received responses from over 600 judicial officers from every Australian state and territory. Respondents completed scales measuring life satisfaction, psychological distress, secondary trauma, and the Judicial Attitudes to Work Scale (JAWS). Judicial officers also provided comments in response to open-ended questions asking for more detail or elaboration regarding issues not sufficiently covered in the close-ended questions. Many of these comments signal multiple layers of judicial emotion and emotion work. Some judicial officers use emotion words to describe their feelings of frustration, resentment and contentedness and others use less specific language to convey emotion in their work, and an overall emotional atmosphere or climate. These statements indicate an overall conception of the judicial role, and good judging, and suggest the multiple ways judicial officers’ everyday experiences and perceptions depart from this image. They also suggest a layering or cascading of emotion arising from different dimensions of judicial work, the judicial hierarchy/leadership and court organisation.