The previous article "Lawyers, Mental Health and the Advice Nobody Should Have to Follow" documented the mental health crisis in the legal profession, the lawyers advising protective parents in family court proceedings. It established, using the profession's own published data, that the average lawyer sits at the clinical threshold at which a formal mental health assessment is warranted, below the IBA's own threshold of 52% and one point above the Topp et al. clinical cut-off of 50.

But lawyers advise. Judges decide.

This post asks the same question about the judiciary.

The UK Judicial Attitude Survey 2024

The UK Judicial Attitude Survey is the only recurring study of its kind anywhere in the world. It is conducted by UCL at the direct request of the senior judiciary. In 2024, 94% of salaried judges in courts participated. This is the judiciary's own picture of itself, gathered by its own commissioned research.

The 2024 survey found that very large proportions of judges reported stress symptoms associated with their work over the previous two years: sleep disturbances (77%), irritability (57%), headaches (52%), muscle tension (43%), lack of concentration (37%), and burnout reported by a significant proportion.

The judge presiding over a hearing about a mother's emotional fitness to parent may be sleep-deprived, irritable, and struggling to concentrate. It is what 77%, 57% and 37% of the judiciary told their own researchers (Thomas, C. (2025). 2024 UK Judicial Attitude Survey)

The global picture

The 2022 UNODC Global Judicial Integrity Network survey of 758 judges across 102 countries found that 92% said judicial work brought them stress sometimes, frequently or always. Seventy-six per cent said they did not have sufficient time to maintain optimal physical and mental wellbeing. Sixty-nine per cent said talking about mental health or stress was a taboo in the judiciary. Ninety-seven per cent said more prominence should be given to promoting judicial wellbeing.

Nearly seven in ten judges globally say mental health is a taboo subject in their profession. The same profession that assesses whether a parent's emotional responses are within normal limits.

The taboo that protects the institution

The most significant finding in the UNODC survey is not the stress levels. It is the 69% who say mental health is a taboo subject in the judiciary. A judiciary in which 69% of its members say mental health cannot be discussed is a judiciary that has institutionalised the same silence it imposes on the families who appear before it.

The judge who cannot speak about their own stress, sleeplessness and burnout is operating inside the same closed loop as the mother they are assessing. Do not raise the thing that is affecting your capacity. It will be used against you.

What impaired wellbeing does to judicial decision-making

The UNODC survey asked judges directly what they believed the consequences of poor wellbeing were for their work. Sixty-eight per cent said poor wellbeing negatively impacts the quality of decisions and judgments. Thirty-two per cent said it impacts the impartiality of judges.

Among the specific negative consequences judges themselves identified: diminished cognitive abilities; lack of concentration; reduced reasoning skills and clarity of thought; decreased ability to stay open and receptive to submissions; insufficient analysis of evidence; lack of empathy; tendency to be biased or resort to stereotyping.

These are not observations made by critics of the judiciary. They are what judges reported about themselves, to their own researchers, about what happens to their decision-making when they are not well. Diminished cognitive abilities. Lack of concentration. Reduced reasoning skills. Decreased ability to stay open and receptive to submissions. Insufficient analysis of evidence. Lack of empathy. Tendency to be biased or resort to stereotyping.

Those are the judiciary’s own self-reported picture of working conditions and wellbeing. No inference is required.

The two questions the evidence demands

The standard applied to protective parents in family court proceedings is fitness, emotional fitness, psychological stability, the capacity to put a child's needs above their own distress.

"Lawyers, Mental Health and the Advice Nobody Should Have to Follow" established the same two questions for lawyers. They apply here with equal force.

Angle one: clinical qualification.

Judges are legal professionals. They are not psychologists. They are not psychiatrists. They hold no registration with any clinical regulatory body. The assessment of a parent's emotional stability, capacity for attachment, and psychological fitness to parent is a clinical function requiring clinical training, clinical registration, and clinical accountability. Judges have none of these. Yet in family court proceedings their findings about a parent's mental and emotional state are entered into the record as determinations of fact, determinations that follow that family for years and that can result in the permanent removal of a child.

They are not qualified to make these assessments. They never were.

Angle two: their own data.

By the IBA's own threshold, the average legal professional globally scores in the range requiring a formal mental health assessment. In the UK, nearly 60% of legal professionals have poor mental wellbeing. The UK Judicial Attitude Survey documents that 77% of judges report sleep disturbances and 37% report lack of concentration associated with their work. The UNODC survey finds that 68% of judges say poor wellbeing negatively impacts the quality of their decisions. The profession is not passing its own test.

Not qualified by training. Not fit by their own evidence.

Yet they are making those determinations, about mothers, about children, about families, and those determinations are changing lives irreversibly.

A judge separated a child from his mother on the basis of emotional fitness. That judge held no clinical qualification to make that assessment. By the judiciary's own published data, that judge was operating in a profession where 77% report sleep disturbances, 37% report lack of concentration, and 68% say poor wellbeing negatively impacts the quality of their decisions.

Is a profession that holds no clinical qualification, and cannot meet its own mental health threshold, fit to sit in judgement of the emotional fitness of others?

The answer, by the profession's own evidence, is no. 

The data raise serious questions about decision-making conditions in the judiciary.

Sources

• International Bar Association. (2021). Mental Wellbeing in the Legal Profession: A Global Study. https://www.ibanet.org/mental-wellbeing-in-the-legal-profession

• Topp, C.W., Ostergaard, S.D., Sondergaard, S. & Bech, P. (2015). The WHO-5 Well-Being Index: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 84(3), 167–176. https://doi.org/10.1159/000376585

• Thomas, C. (2025). 2024 UK Judicial Attitude Survey. UCL / Judiciary of England and Wales. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Published_2024JAS_EnglandWales_UKTribunals.pdf

• UNODC Global Judicial Integrity Network. (2022). Exploring Linkages Between Judicial Well-Being and Judicial Integrity. https://www.unodc.org/dohadeclaration/en/news/2022/03/exploring-the-linkages-between-judicial-well-being-and-judicial-integrity.html

• Krill, P.R., Johnson, R. & Albert, L. (2016). The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys. Journal of Addiction Medicine, 10(1), 46–52. https://doi.org/10.1097/ADM.0000000000000182

• Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery. New York: Basic Books.