Judicial Well-Being and Mindfulness
Vol. 109 No. 2 (2025) | Communicating to the People | Download PDF Version of Article
“Judicial stress is not a weakness and must not be stigmatised,” affirms the 2024 Nauru Declaration on Judicial Well-being. This international call reflects growing recognition that judges, like lawyers and law students, face high rates of burnout, anxiety, and depression. Although they make weighty decisions under constant scrutiny, judges’ mental health has historically received far less attention. Recent research and international initiatives — including the United Nations’ designation of July 25 as the International Day for Judicial Well-being — have brought this issue into sharper focus.
Mindfulness has been gaining ground in the legal profession as one approach to addressing mental health issues. This practice is about recognizing the present moment, and while it does involve guided meditations, mindfulness is also about bringing awareness to everyday life. Studies on mindfulness have demonstrated that it can improve mental health, focus, and concentration. Reflecting this growing interest, mindfulness has begun to appear across the legal landscape — in scholarship, professional training, law school curricula, and even judicial education. Numerous authors have published law review articles and books on the interface of mindfulness and the legal profession.1 Lawyers have been signing up for mindfulness workshops, and some U.S. and Canadian law schools offer upper-year credit courses in the subject. Several authors have explored the effectiveness of mindfulness for judges, and the National Judicial College offers a course on the topic. I have delivered mindfulness workshops for judges in Australia and Canada.
Below is what I often share in such workshops: how mindfulness may assist judges in their everyday tasks at the courthouse and in their personal lives. I discuss the well-being of lawyers and the judiciary, the concept of mindfulness and its benefits, and conclude by examining its relevance to the judiciary.
Judicial Well-Being
Mental health concerns within the legal profession are well-documented and deeply rooted. A 2016 U.S. study found that approximately 28% of lawyers struggled with depression, while 19% were dealing with anxiety.2 By 2024, the percentage with depression was relatively stable, but a remarkable 55% of lawyers were combating anxiety.3
Similar results appear in Canada. A 2021 survey of nearly 8,000 Canadian legal professionals found that 28.6% reported moderate to severe levels of depression,4 35.7% anxiety,5 59.4% psychological distress,6 and 24.4% suicidal ideation.7
Regarding judicial well-being specifically, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has noted, “In the past, judges and legal professionals tended to disparage or dismiss [mental health] considerations.”8 Still, the well-being of judges has not received the same attention as the mental health of lawyers and law students.9 Perhaps this lack of focus is because the mental health of judges was simply not considered, as we expect judges “to be paragons of virtue, industry, judgment, courtesy and efficiency.”10 As former High Court of Australia Justice Michael Kirby asked, “So can we put judicial officers on such a high pedestal as to be completely out of account in a discussion about wellness?”11 After all, scholars have noted, “Judges are human and are thus not immune to negative feelings, such as anger, sadness and stress.”12 Moreover, judges face the “stressful realities” of “overloaded dockets, heightened public scrutiny, weighty decisions, disturbing evidence, irritating lawyers and litigants, anxiety over time limits and expectations of perfection, threats to safety, [and] social isolation.”13
Judicial well-being is significant because judges make decisions that affect litigants’ lives and bear the responsibility of upholding constitutional principles.14 As one scholarly review of qualitative and quantitative studies of judicial well-being concludes: “When judges do not flourish because of . . . heightened emotions and anxiety, their ability to consider relevant evidence may be negatively affected.”15 Ultimately, then, the well-being of judges can influence the public’s trust in the judicial system.16
Evolution of Interest in Judicial Well-Being
Traditionally, the legal system would only respond when individual judges were suffering to the point that they could no longer perform their duties. Discipline or removal were options to address these challenges, but now there has been a call for “broader, nonpunitive attention to the stressors faced by all judges, not only those who have become impaired.”17 Over time, the conversation has shifted to the “goal of preventing and mitigating . . . suffering.”18
In 2007, UNODC released its Commentary on The Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct, recognizing the growing stress associated with judicial duties.19 The report recommended that counseling and therapy be made available to judges experiencing stress and noted that empirical research and several high-profile cases had drawn attention to the issue.
In the United States, concern over judges’ mental health resurfaced with the 2020 publication of “Stress and Resiliency in the U.S. Judiciary,”20 a survey of 1,034 U.S. judges.21 A 2023 summary in Judicature reported that more than one in five judge respondents might meet the criteria for depressive disorder, nearly 6% experienced severe or extremely severe anxiety, and about one in four reported stress levels that could be debilitating.22 Although levels of distress appear lower for judges than for lawyers, the authors cautioned that “judges wield far more power than most lawyers and their distress can have commensurately greater consequences.”23
Then, in March 2022, UNODC released “Exploring Linkages between Judicial Well-Being and Judicial Integrity,” a survey of 758 judges from 102 countries. The report’s principal findings are as follows:
- 76% of judges . . . do not have sufficient time to maintain optimal physical and mental well-being.
- 92% indicate that judicial work brings them stress sometimes, frequently, or always.
- 89% know of cases of judicial colleagues experiencing stress or anxiety.
- 69% feel that talking about mental health or stress is a taboo when it comes to judges and members of the judiciary.
- 97% think that more prominence should be given to promoting judicial well-being.24
The study further highlights that judicial well-being is a topic requiring urgent discussion and change.
2024 was a watershed year for judicial well-being. The journal Psychiatry, Psychology & Law dedicated an entire special issue to the topic,25 and the Nauru Declaration on Judicial Well-being was adopted at the Regional Judicial Conference on Integrity and Judicial Well-being, organized by UNODC, encompassing the clearest statement thus far on the importance of judicial well-being.26
The Nauru Declaration states, “Judicial well-being is essential for individual judges’ occupational health and sustainability, for court users’ experience in court, for the quality of justice and ultimately for public confidence in the courts.”27
The declaration recognizes judicial stress as a reality, defining it “as the subjectively negative psychological, physiological and/or behavioural responses a judge may have to the demands of judicial work.”28 It notes the growing pressures of judicial work and frames stress as a normal human reaction. Importantly, the declaration also highlights that mental health stigma persists within legal and judicial culture, which “compounds inherent work challenges with isolation and shame, and is a major barrier to help-seeking and recovery.”29 Similarly, the UN proclamation establishing July 25 as the International Day for Judicial Well-being30 affirmed that judicial well-being is essential for effective and diligent decision-making, while calling for resources to help meet this need.
Approaching Judicial Wellness
Disclosing a mental health struggle is often the first step toward getting help, but it can be a difficult decision for judges. Fortunately, we have examples of judges who have come forward to disclose their own mental health stories. In 2019, Supreme Court of Canada Justice Clément Gascon publicly acknowledged living with depression and anxiety for more than two decades.31 Similarly, in 2024, Justice Michelle Hollins of the Alberta Court of King’s Bench recounted her own mental health crisis in a published chapter titled “What is Happening to Me?”32 Such openness from judicial role models may inspire lawyers, law students, and fellow judges to speak more freely about mental illness.
A multifaceted approach may be necessary to address the mental health challenges faced by judges. The 2020 survey of U.S. judges revealed that they were trying several techniques to improve their well-being, including asking for peer support, doing yoga, supporting colleagues, getting adequate sleep, engaging in hobbies, maintaining diverse friendships outside of the field, practicing their faith, involving staff in planning, obtaining social support from trusted people, reading educational materials, participating in physical activities, getting balanced nutrition, and using mindfulness techniques.33
Notably, the survey revealed that while mindfulness was “a current activity endorsed by” only about a third of respondents, a whopping 81% expressed interest in it.34 In other words, it seemed that many judges who were not practicing mindfulness were open to learning more about it. This significant interest — and significant gap — may reflect a potential need for further training in this highly effective resilience skill. Similarly, survey participants in the 2022 UNODC study indicated that they would welcome continued online training opportunities to promote work-life balance, wellness, or mindfulness; various self-care courses; counseling; and group support with colleagues.35
So what is mindfulness, and how might mindfulness assist judges in their daily lives?
Mindfulness and Its Benefits
Cultures around the world teach and curate mindfulness.36 The UK All Party Mindfulness Group defined mindfulness as “paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment in the mind, body and external environment, with an attitude of curiosity and kindness.”37 Jeremy Fogel, former U.S. district court judge and executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, who authored the influential paper “Mindfulness and Judging,” similarly defined mindfulness as “slowing down one’s mental processes enough to allow one to notice as much as possible about a given moment or situation, and then to act thoughtfully based on what one has noticed.”38 As I have written in a co-authored piece, mindfulness is “an attention-based phenomenon in which one purposefully sends attentional flow to the present moment.”39
We can experience the present moment by anchoring our attention on our breath in a mindfulness meditation. We practice mindfulness meditation to strengthen our connection to the present moment. We can also bring our attention to the present moment in everything we do in our daily lives, such as mindful walking, listening, reading, or even eating.
Why practice mindfulness? Research has demonstrated numerous benefits relevant to the legal profession and the judiciary. First, it improves focus and concentration.40 We live in a world of distraction: The 2024 study on lawyer well-being revealed that 48% of lawyers had trouble focusing on work tasks.41 With improvements to focus and attention through mindfulness, judges can perform at a higher level.
Mindfulness is also credited with various other mental health benefits.42 The American Bar Association Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being notes that research suggests that mindfulness can also reduce rumination, stress, depression, and anxiety.43 In addition, programs such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction44 and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy45 have been shown to be effective at reducing the risk of depression.46 The general benefits of mindfulness — such as improved focus, reduced stress and anxiety, and a lower risk of depression — directly address the needs of judges.
Mindfulness for Judges
The benefits of mindfulness have garnered the attention of the judiciary, and an emerging body of literature emphasizes why judges should practice it.47 Judges report practicing mindfulness before, during, and after they are on the bench.48 Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer reportedly meditated twice a day while on the bench.49
Fogel argues that “mindfulness. . . has obvious implications for the actual work that judges do.”50 He adds that “for judges, whose judgments can have profound effects on others, [mindfulness] can be an enormously effective tool and a key to a more satisfying professional life.”51 Other authors have noted that mindfulness can help “avoid compassion collapse,”52 increase clarity of thought, and improve emotional regulation.53
The benefits of improved focus and concentration through mindfulness seem well-suited to the judiciary. In the 2020 UNODC study of judicial well-being, 32.3% of respondents indicated that stress interfered with attention and concentration, leading to a tendency for judges to be distracted.54 In the 2022 UNODC study on judicial well-being, participants noted “diminished cognitive abilities; lack of concentration; [and] reduced reasoning skills and clarity of thought” as effects of suboptimal well-being.55 Judges are expected to “focus,”56 but courtrooms can be distracting environments.57 One scholar has noted that mindfulness training “may protect brain functions tied to performance [and] attention,” ultimately assisting judges “who labor to maintain clarity and avoid error.”58
Mindfulness may also help promote a good judicial demeanor and temperament. As Fogel notes, a judge with mindful awareness “is more conscious of his or her emotional reactions to a lawyer, litigant, or situation, and is able to choose an appropriate response rather than ignoring the reactions or losing control.”59 Donn Kessler, former judge of the Arizona Court of Appeals has similarly noted that mindfulness practices have “led to my being more responsive and less reactive in the process of deciding appeals.”60
Many successful judges have never practiced or considered mindfulness.61 Indeed, with overloaded dockets, it may seem impossible to find an opportunity for it. As one student once told me, “I am far too busy to meditate.” But as the attorney-authors of The Anxious Lawyer write: “even the busiest people have ten minutes.”62
Final Thoughts
It appears that there is considerable interest in the judiciary about mindfulness — and great potential benefit from the practice. Studies showing the benefits of mindfulness for both lawyers63 and law students64 suggest that the prospects for future research on mindfulness and judges are significant.65
Let me conclude with the remarks of Arthur Rothenberg, former senior judge in the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida: “The practice of mindfulness enables me to greet negative or rancorous advocacy with serenity. In fact, when argument descends from enlightenment to bellicosity, I am always reminded of the serene alternative awaiting in mindfulness, to which I repair immediately.”66
THOMAS G. W. TELFER is a professor of law at the University of Western Ontario and a member of the International Academy of Commercial and Consumer Law. He created a mindfulness and law course, which has been offered six times at Western and twice at Duke.
1 See, e.g., Elizabeth F. Emens, Law’s Contribution to the Mindfulness Revolution, 3 Utah L. Rev. 573 (2022); Nathalie Martin, Lawyering from the Inside Out: Learning Professional Development Through Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence (2018); Jeena Cho & Karen Gifford, The Anxious Lawyer: An 8-Week Guide to a Joyful and Satisfying Law Practice Through Mindfulness and Meditation (2016).
2 Patrick R. Krill, Ryan Johnson & Linda Albert, The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys, 10 J. Addiction Med. 46, 50–51 (2016).
3 Bloomberg Law, 2024 Attorney Well-Being Report: The Divide Between Health & the Legal Industry 4 (2024).
4 Nathalie Cadieux et al., Research Report (Final Version): Towards a Healthy and Sustainable Practice of Law in Canada. National Study on the Psychological Health Determinants of Legal Professionals in Canada, Phase I (2020–2022) 34 (2022).
5 Id.
6 Id. at 27.
7 Id. at 41.
8 U.N. Office on Drugs & Crime, Commentary on The Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct 130 (2007), https://www.unodc.org/conig/uploads/documents/publications/Otherpublications/Commentry_on_the_Bangalore_principles_of_Judicial_Conduct.pdf.
9 Carly Schrever et al., The Psychological Impact of Judicial Work: Australia’s First Empirical Research Measuring Judicial Stress and Well-Being, 28 J. Jud. Admin. 141, 141 (2019).
10 Michael Kirby, Judicial Stress and Judicial Bullying, 14 Qut. L. Rev. 1, 2 (2014).
11 Id.
12 Elna Rossouw & Sebastiaan Rothmann, Well-Being of Judges: A Review of Quantitative and Qualitative Studies, 46 SA J. Indus. Psych. 1, 3 (2020).
13 Anne Brafford & Robert W. Rebele, Judges’ Well-Being and the Importance of Meaningful Work, 54 Ct. Rev. 60, 60 (2018).
14 Rossouw & Rothmann, supra note 12, at 2.
15 Id.
16 Id.
17 Terry A. Maroney et al., The State of Judges’ Well-Being: A Report on the 2019 National Judicial Stress and Resiliency Survey, 107 Judicature 22, 23 (2023).
18 Id.
19 U.N. Office on Drugs & Crime, supra note 8, at 129.
20 David Swenson et al., Stress and Resiliency in the U.S. Judiciary, 107 J. Professional Lawyer 1 (2020).
21 Id. at 6.
22 Maroney et al., supra note 17, at 27.
23 Id.
24 U.N. Office on Drugs & Crime, Exploring Linkages Between Judicial Well-Being and Judicial Integrity: Report on the Global Survey Conducted by the Global Judicial Integrity Network (Mar. 2022), https://www.unodc.org/res/ji/resdb/data/2022/exploring_linkages_between_judicial_wellbeing_and_judicial_integrity_html/Global_Report_Judicial_Well-being.pdf.
25 Kate Diesfeld et al., Introduction to the Special Issue on Judicial and Lawyer Well-Being and Stress, 31 Psychiatry, Psych. & L. 315 (2024).
26 U.N. Office on Drugs & Crime, Nauru Declaration on Judicial Well-being (July 25, 2024), https://judicialwellbeing.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Nauru-Declaration-on-Judicial-Well-being.pdf.
27 Id at 2.
28 Id.
29 Id.
30 See U.N. Office on Drugs & Crime, International Day for Judicial Well-being: A Global Call for Action (Sept. 23, 2021), https://www.unodc.org/dohadeclaration/en/news/2025/international-day-for-judicial-well-being_a-global-call-for-action.html.
31 Peter Zimonjic, Supreme Court Justice Gascon Attributes Disappearance to Depression, Anxiety, CBC News (May 14, 2019), https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/clement-gascon-mental-health-1.5136015.
32 Justice Michelle Hollins, What is Happening to Me?, in The Right Not to Remain Silent: The Truth About Mental Health in the Legal Profession, 11 (Beth Beattie, Carole Dagher & Thomas G. W. Telfer, eds., 2024).
33 Swenson et al., supra note 20, at 18.
34 Id at 16.
35 U.N. Office on Drugs & Crime, supra note 26, at 26.
36 This section of the paper is based in part upon Thomas G. W. Telfer et al., Enhancing Lawyers’
Well-Being and Competencies Beyond the Traditional Law School Curriculum: The Impact of Mindfulness Education on Law Students, 58 Univ. B.C. L. Rev. 259 (2025).
37 UK Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Grp., Mindful Nation UK Report (2015), https://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org/mindful-nation-
report.
38 Jeremy Fogel, Mindfulness and Judging, 101 Judicature 14, 14 (2017).
39 Telfer et al., supra note 36, at 262–263.
40 For a review, see Emily G. Nielsen, Moving Beyond the Mat: Exploring the Application of Mindfulness Training in Professional and Educational Settings 12–13 (Sept. 25, 2020) (PhD dissertation, University of Western Ontario), https://uwo.scholaris.ca/items/dcf3324c-2f05-419f-aec5-d09a16b15b8b. See also Clark Freshman et al., Mindful “Judging” 1.5: The Science of Attention, “Lie Detection,” and Bias Reduction — With Kindness, J. Disp. Resol. 281, 291 (2016).
41 Bloomberg Law, supra note 3, at 5.
42 Nielsen, supra note 40 at 7–13. For a survey of the literature on the various benefits of mindfulness, see Telfer et al., supra note 36, at 263–264.
43 ABA Nat’l Task Force on Law. Well-Being, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change 52 (2017), https://lawyerwellbeing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Lawyer-Wellbeing-Report.pdf.
44 Jon Kabat-Zinn, An Outpatient Program in Behavioral Medicine for Chronic Pain Patients Based on the Practice of Mindfulness Meditation: Theoretical Considerations and Preliminary Results, 4 Gen. Hosp. Psychiatry 33 (1982).
45 Zindel V. Sega, et al., Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse (2002).
46 Nielsen, supra note 40, at 10–11.
47 On the history of judges and mindfulness, see Scott Rogers, Mindfulness in Law and the Importance of Practice, 90 Fla. Bar J. 10 (2016). For an earlier study, see Evan R. Seamone, Judicial Mindfulness, 70 U. Cin. L. Rev. 1023 (2002).
48 Rogers et al., Mindfulness Training for Judges: Mind Wandering and the Development of Cognitive Resilience, 54 Ct. Rev. 80, 81 (2018). For the impact of mindfulness on one judge, see Gretchen Rohr, The Mindful Judge, Lion’s Roar (Nov. 6, 2017), https://www.lionsroar.com/the-mindful-judge/.
49 Freshman et al., supra note 40, at 315 (“Twice a day, Justice Breyer turns from his draft opinions and cert petitions and closes his eyes. He meditates. Some minutes later, he opens his eyes and goes back to the public life we know so well.”).
50 Fogel, supra note 38, at 14.
51 Id.
52 Brafford & Rebele, supra note 13, at 70.
53 Rogers et al., supra note 48, at 81.
54 Maroney et al., supra note 17, at 26.
55 U.N. Office on Drugs & Crime, supra note 26, at 7.
56 Rogers et al., supra note 48, at 81.
57 Chris McAliley, Mindfulness on the Bench, 90 Fla. Bar J. 24, 24 (2016).
58 Rogers et al., supra note 48, at 85.
59 Fogel, supra note 38, at 15.
60 McAliley, supra note 57, at 25.
61 Id. at 24.
62 Cho & Gifford, supra note 1, at 64.
63 Emily G. Nielsen & John Paul Minda, The Mindful Lawyer: Investigating the Effects of Two Online Mindfulness Programs on Self-Reported Well-Being in the Legal Profession, 63 J. Occupational Env’t Med. 871 (2021).
64 See generally Telfer et al., supra note 36.
65 Luke Wiley et al., Too Stressed to De-Stress? The Experience of Work Stress and Recovery Among Attorneys during the COVID-19 Pandemic 31:3 Psychiatry, Psych. & L. 440, 442, 461 (2024).
66 McAliley, supra note 57, at 25.