New Zealand Study: Burnout and Trauma Near-Universal Among Lawyers

A major new study of New Zealand lawyers finds that 22.5% are considering leaving the profession, 67.6% describe their workload as heavy or extremely heavy, and 86% report moderate-to-severe vicarious trauma — with 50.7% meeting the threshold for moderate-to-severe secondary traumatic stress. The research is notable for the severity of the secondary trauma finding, which has historically been associated with first-responder and social-work professions rather than commercial legal practice. The data suggests that firms treating trauma as a specialist issue confined to criminal or family law are miscalibrating their exposure. Across all practice areas, sustained client exposure to distress is producing clinically significant trauma responses in the majority of practitioners.