The case for implementing legal clinical supervision within legal practice, and recommendations for best practice

ABSTRACT

While the concept of clinical supervision is well-developed within clinical legal education, its application within broader legal practice is less explored. This paper aims to contribute to this emerging conversation by providing recommendations for the effective incorporation of clinical supervision within legal practice. The paper provides an initial overview of the current state of research on clinical supervision in legal practice, subsequently outlining the benefits and key considerations for its implementation. The paper argues that clinical supervision can yield a multitude of benefits, including the reduction of burnout, minimisation of vicarious trauma, and enhancement of the quality of legal practice by fostering emotional and interpersonal skills. The paper further discusses the importance of self-reflection, debriefing, and supervision that facilitates self-care in the context of clinical supervision. The potential benefits of this approach extend to all members of the profession, from new lawyers to seasoned practitioners, and could lead to improved professionalism, reduced attrition, and enhanced wellbeing within the legal profession.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervision in legal practice
• clinical supervision
• professional supervision
• reflective practice
• lawyer wellbeing

Introduction

This paper explores the potential benefits of introducing clinical-style supervision into legal practice. It first offers an overview of the literature on clinical supervision in legal practice, then outlines some of the benefits and key considerations for implementation. As outlined in further detail below, the results of the narrative literature review conducted here suggest that clinical supervision produces a wide range of benefits, including reducing burnout, minimising vicarious trauma, and increasing staff retention. It may also improve the quality of legal practice by building emotional and interpersonal skills and supporting lawyers to fulfil their professional duties. When it comes to how clinical-style supervision might be effectively embedded within legal practice, the scholarship points in particular to the importance of self-reflection and debriefing, as well as supervision that facilitates self-care.

A preliminary question to this research is what is clinical supervision? If the dominant understanding of supervision within the legal profession relates to reviewing the final work product,¹ clinical supervision takes a broader view of the role and purpose of the supervisory relationship. The literature on clinical supervision – also called ‘professional supervision’ and at times simply referred to as ‘supervision’² – is much more developed in the ‘helping professions’, such as psychology, social work and counselling.³ Within these fields, supervision is often defined according to its function or purposes rather than in purely descriptive terms. The purposes of supervision are diverse and may range from improving practitioner competence to supporting individual resilience and occupational health,⁴ as well as managing organisational risks and managerial responsibilities.⁵ That said, clinical supervision is often understood as involving something beyond the administrative or procedural elements of a person's role.⁶ For Hawkins and Shohet, the purpose of supervision is to ‘nurture and expand’ the capacities of both supervisee and supervisor.⁷ They propose:

In supervision we collaborate and relate in order to reflect on the relating between the practitioners and their client(s), in order to create new learning and unlearning, that both transforms the work, and increases the capacity of the supervisee to sustain themselves in the work.⁸

This points to both the reflective focus of supervision and its benefits for professional competence and staff resilience.

In the clinical legal education setting, supervision has also been attributed various purposes.⁹ Giddings and McNamara, for instance, identify three functions: mentoring/support, managerial/administrative and educational/training.¹⁰ Some writing within the clinical legal education context also see supervision as having a social justice function; the supervisor is tasked with persuading the student of the value and feasibility of such work.¹¹ Advocating for the integration of critical legal theory into supervision in a Canadian legal clinic, Smyth and Overholt propose that this critical lens is crucial to draw out the inherently political nature of legal work.¹² Adamson, meanwhile, albeit writing in the social work context, suggests that ‘indicators of stress, inequality, or injustice explored within the supervision relationship also become matters for consideration and ethical inquiry’,¹³ i.e. that the structural factors that give rise to these experiences should be part of the supervision relationship and not reduced to matters that required risk management. In this way, supervision is not just about improving work practices but also imbuing certain values in supervisees.

The majority of the supervision literature is not empirical but is reflective or practice-based scholarship. Many studies related to legal education clinical supervision do not include outcome measures or evaluation of student feedback, relying instead on the reflections of the clinical supervisors. There is also very limited scholarship evaluating the effectiveness of supervision or offering empirically informed recommendations for best practice. Nevertheless, empirical scholarship has demonstrated the benefits of supervision in non-legal settings,¹⁴ which strongly implies that the same outcomes could be achievable in legal practice settings. More work is required to distinguish between the potential for positive outcomes proposed in the literature and documented empirical outcomes for lawyers and their clients. One exception to this is McNamara's doctoral research, which underpinned his important book on supervision in legal practice. This involved a survey of lawyers practising in the state of Queensland which explored the legal profession's conception of and approach to supervision of junior lawyers.¹⁵ McNamara's findings, consistent with the literature discussed below, identify the importance of the supervisor-supervisee relationship and indicate that supervisees are keen for more time with their supervisor and more empathy and support.¹⁶

Whilst there is little analysis of supervision practices within legal practice,¹⁷ a significant body of literature over the past 40+ years addresses supervision within the law school clinic and placement context.¹⁸ Indeed, here are a number of academic journals dedicated to this field: the Clinical Law Review, the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education and the Australian Journal of Clinical Education. The proliferation of this literature highlights the disparity between the focus on supervision in clinical education settings and its prominence in practice. One academic has reflected that he experienced higher quality supervision, feedback and reflection in the law school clinic setting than in his professional practice.¹⁹ And yet, Samra and Jones assert that ‘all legal professionals need supervision as much if not more than law students’, advocating for a more consistent system of supervision of relational competencies within the United States legal profession to improve wellbeing and legal culture more generally.²⁰ Brooks et al. similarly note that their recent article on clinical legal education and relational skills is an intervention that aims to ‘open the door to a broader conversation about a more holistic approach to the licensing and ongoing supervision of legal professionals’.²¹ This paper aims to contribute to this emerging conversation.

Certainly, there is a growing body of literature that points to the benefits of clinical supervision for early-to mid-career lawyers, particularly in terms of benefits to wellbeing. Research suggests that mental and emotional wellbeing is an issue within law schools internationally, particularly within the United States of America,²² and in Australia,²³ with law students often experiencing strong emotional responses within clinical contexts, such as ‘moral outrage’ or ‘moral anger’,²⁴ which may require support to process. Meanwhile, there is significant concern around mental health amongst practising lawyers,²⁵ as well as amongst judges.²⁶ This is particularly the case in areas that are highly emotionally charged, such as family law, immigration law and certain areas of criminal practice.²⁷ These specialisations expose lawyers to trauma in a way that goes beyond the experience of practitioners in other areas of legal practice. It may be that these issues emerge partly due to a professional culture which discourages emotional vulnerability amongst lawyers.²⁸ Whilst the impact is obvious for the individual lawyer, there are also flow-on effects in terms of workforce attrition and lower cognitive and emotional capacity, with consequences for the quality of work.²⁹ Supervision may assist in managing the transition from idealised visions of rights-based legal practice held by law students into the greyer realities of much legal practice.

The legal profession's awareness of wellbeing concerns is evident not just in academic studies, but also in the abundance of professional publications featuring articles about the subject.³⁰ Alongside this are increased efforts by firms, professional associations and law schools to address wellbeing.³¹ Indeed, according to Lawson: ‘It seems like everyone in the legal profession is talking about “lawyer wellbeing”’.³² In some legal workplaces, including courts, proactive wellbeing sessions with clinicians modelled on clinical supervision are currently being offered,³³ but public information about these interventions is scant and peer-reviewed empirical scholarship virtually non-existent. In the discussion below, this paper draws out some recommendations for the implementation of such initiatives, although we note the need for further empirical data to inform and evaluate these efforts.

Methods

This paper provides the findings of a narrative literature review conducted to identify, review and summarise the available literature on clinical supervision in legal practice. A thorough search of the literature revealed 154 peer-reviewed and professional publications, which were thematically analysed to discern both the benefits of clinical supervision in this setting and considerations for implementation. The focus of the search was on clinical-style supervision. Accordingly, whilst the paper touches on issues such as lawyer wellbeing, the importance of reflective practice and trauma-informed lawyering, it does not purport to offer a comprehensive overview of the literature on these topics.

The search was conducted across the legal academic databases: HeinOnline, Westlaw (Australia and International) and Lexis Nexis. Initial keyword search terms included a combination of ‘clinical supervision’, and ‘legal practice’ or ‘legal profession’. Once specific benefits or best practice principles were identified, further searches were conducted to identify materials that considered, for instance, ‘supervision’ and ‘burnout’ or ‘trauma’. Approximately 7,151 results were returned across these searches. Where the results for a particular search were above 300, they were limited by date (post-2010) and/or only the first 100 or so reviewed to determine the level of overlap with previous searches. The review of the initial results included title and abstract screening to determine the relevance of these publications to the research questions. Duplicates and documents focused on supervision in the more limited sense of reviewing junior practitioners’ work were excluded. This resulted in 154 documents, of which the vast majority were peer-reviewed publications. The literature was then subject to a narrative review to address the research questions. Some further relevant publications were identified as part of this process.

The benefits of clinical supervision

The literature points to a number of potential benefits that would flow from the introduction of clinical supervision into legal practice. We argue that these are particularly relevant to lawyers working within a legal aid or legal assistance context, whose workload is often very high and whose clientele may present with complex legal and social needs.

One immediate impact of high-quality supervision is likely to be better outcomes for clients. In the US context, concerns have been expressed as to whether junior lawyers can adequately represent clients without supervision immediately upon graduation, leading to the development of best practice standards for legal education.³⁴ Quite simply, adequate supervision can offer a ‘safety net’ that provides more junior practitioners with support to work effectively and competently.³⁵ Other ways that supervision may improve outcomes is by assisting professionals to deal with complex cases,³⁶ and through encouraging self-reflection. Reflective practice can improve decision-making in part by assisting lawyers to identify their biases,³⁷ as well as having a range of other benefits, including building self-awareness, including around one's wellbeing needs,³⁸ and fostering resilience.³⁹ That said, some research links resilience to personality rather than conceptualising it as a skill or capacity.⁴⁰ The nexus between supervision and self-reflection is discussed below in the section on considerations for implementation.

These benefits of clinical supervision within legal practice can be divided into those relating to wellbeing and those which improve practice more directly. These include:

Wellbeing benefits

• Managing stress and reducing burnout

• Minimising vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress (for those practising in areas where this is relevant)

Professional benefits

• Improving emotional and communication skills

• Fostering ethical practice

• Worker retention

Each of these is discussed in turn below.

Wellbeing benefits

Stress, burnout, vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress are related but distinct phenomena.⁴¹ The literature is not consistent in the definition of and distinction between these terms, but they are all wellbeing matters with significant impact on individual lawyers as well as the potential to diminish cognitive capacity and consequently the quality of work. Therefore, an ancillary benefit of addressing these issues is improving the overall capacity and effectiveness of lawyers. Below, we outline the nature and scope of the issues relating to burnout, stress and trauma-responses, as well as the research indicating the benefits of supervision for addressing them.

Managing stress and reducing burnout

Supervision has been shown to assist in managing workplace stress and burnout. These phenomena are closely related, in that burnout is defined as ‘a long-term condition that results from chronic exposure to stressful work situations’.⁴² Burnout also overlaps with vicarious trauma, discussed below. Stress and burnout both result from a combination of the specific professional experience and the organisational dynamics of the individual's workplace, resulting in exhaustion and a decreased sense of accomplishment.⁴³ Particularly prevalent among professionals who do ‘people-work’, burnout may lead to both physical and psychological symptoms.⁴⁴ The major indicators of burnout are emotional exhaustion, cynicism and poor self-efficacy.⁴⁵ In terms of its impact, burnout manifests as the depletion of emotional resources, increased negative responses towards one's clients and, potentially, negative self-image.⁴⁶ This may, in turn, decrease an individual's engagement with their work, leading to inefficiency and greater cynicism,⁴⁷ or leaving the lawyer too simply exhausted to do their work.⁴⁸

Factors contributing to stress within the legal profession include long working hours and heavy caseloads.⁴⁹ Studies have found that the rates of burnout are particularly high among lawyers working within human rights settings,⁵⁰ family law,⁵¹ and with asylum seekers.⁵² There is some suggestion that lawyers in community practice are at higher risk of burnout due to ‘the isolating nature of social justice work’.⁵³

In terms of individual risk factors for burnout, research suggests that those who are particularly idealistic and/or define themselves by reference to their work are at greatest risk.⁵⁴ A meta-analysis of the personal risk factors for developing burnout amongst psychotherapists pointed to individual risk factors including being younger, having less work experience and compassionately responding to harm and injustice experienced by clients.⁵⁵ At an organisational level, unrealistic expectations, lack of collaboration and a failure to recognise and respond to individual needs increase the chances of burnout.⁵⁶ These are risk factors that can be effectively managed through the kind of support provided in good quality supervision that both assists with practical strategies and values work that help lawyers work through these issues.

Other risk factors are less easily managed by supervision. For instance, some literature suggests that burnout may arise in the legal profession due to the adversarial nature of the system,⁵⁷ such as the impact of ‘losing’ a case on a client and their family.⁵⁸ Research with human rights advocates similarly suggests that younger people are at greater risk of burnout.⁵⁹ That said, experience is not necessarily protective given the cumulative impact of exposure to trauma.⁶⁰

Although stress is viewed as an inevitable aspect of legal practice,⁶¹ there is significant research linking inadequate supervision to increased risk of stress or burnout,⁶² and conversely highlighting the benefits of supervision for reducing stress or burnout.⁶³ A metareview of studies on effective clinical supervision found over 10 studies indicating the benefits of supervision for reducing stress and anxiety.⁶⁴ In the legal education setting, the clinical supervisor has been argued to be in a better position to attend to the wellbeing of students than other tutors or lecturers, given the more intimate nature of the clinic setting when compared to formal classes.⁶⁵ This may also be true in a workplace setting, if there is sufficient emphasis on building strong supervisory relationships. The importance of the supervisory relationship is addressed in more detail below.

Minimising vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress

Supervision is also demonstrated to assist in managing the impacts of trauma exposure. Whilst not a feature of all areas of legal practice, trauma exposure has been identified as a significant issue in certain practice areas. As noted above, the terms vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress overlap,⁶⁶ with some researchers using the terms interchangeably.⁶⁷ As a result of this confusion around terminology, some researchers express reservations about research in the area, although they nonetheless note the acknowledge the high risk of trauma exposure within the legal profession.⁶⁸ Secondary traumatic stress has been defined ‘as symptoms of traumatic stress from exposure to persons with similar symptoms who have been exposed to trauma’.⁶⁹ Vicarious trauma has been defined in very similar terms as arising where a lawyer (or other caring professional) takes on the emotional trauma of their clients.⁷⁰ Compassion fatigue is another term that is used in the literature to describe similar scenarios,⁷¹ defined as ‘the cumulative emotional, psychological and physical effects of exposure to the pain, distress or injustice suffered by clients’.⁷² That said, some authors suggest that compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma are distinct, albeit related, phenomena.⁷³ For present purposes it is not necessary to distinguish between these terms and both ‘secondary stress trauma’ and vicarious trauma will be used in the following discussion, with their use reflecting the original terminology of the research consulted.

In those practice areas which are likely to involve trauma exposure, vicarious trauma impacts an individual lawyer's sense of self, as well as potentially impacting their broader views on the world, such perceptions of safety or spiritual beliefs.⁷⁴ Vicarious trauma can have both physical and emotional symptoms,⁷⁵ and may, if unaddressed, lead to burnout.⁷⁶ Trauma responses can also reduce a lawyer's efficacy.⁷⁷ This may be partly due to the fact that vicarious trauma can cause cognitive bias and, as a result, impact on lawyers’ professional skills.⁷⁸

Lawyers have been found to exhibit significantly higher rates of secondary trauma and burnout than mental health providers.⁷⁹ Vicarious trauma amongst lawyers has been identified across the board,⁸⁰ although certain risk factors have been identified. One of these is working in a practice area where the client is experiencing trauma or high stress,⁸¹ such as immigration law,⁸² particularly with asylum seekers,⁸³ family law,⁸⁴ human rights,⁸⁵ and criminal law.⁸⁶ For similar reasons, public sector lawyers, including those working within legal assistance organisations or public defenders, are also more likely to experience vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress,⁸⁷ as are those who act specifically for vulnerable clients, such as children.⁸⁸

Individual factors that increase the likelihood of compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma include being particularly conscientious or self-sacrificing.⁸⁹ Conversely, some studies have suggested that vicarious trauma amongst lawyers is more readily explained by reference to systemic or organisational factors, including inadequate support, lack of supervision and opportunities for debriefing and a failure to provide training on the topic.⁹⁰ Numerous studies reinforce the finding that inadequate supervision is a risk factor for developing vicarious trauma,⁹¹ particularly failure to offer supervision around trauma and its impact.⁹²

Conversely, there is – as with stress and burnout – research suggesting that supervision may be able to address or reduce the risk of trauma-related wellbeing issues, if and when they do arise.⁹³ These papers generally do not provide detail as to the nature of the supervision, but it is often discussed in terms of self-reflection,⁹⁴ or alongside the need to draw junior professionals’ attention to the risk of burnout and secondary trauma.⁹⁵ Beyond supervision, much of the literature also suggests that discussion of wellbeing, trauma and burnout should be embedded into legal education.⁹⁶ In a similar vein, others have advocated the introduction of trauma-informed practice into the legal curriculum.⁹⁷

A small amount of scholarship points to the potentially negative impact of supervision, with some indication that more supervision may increase anxiety amongst lawyers.⁹⁸ That said, the authors of that study suggest that further research is needed to explain this, hypothesising that this finding may be due to differing interpretations of supervision, lawyers with higher levels of anxiety reaching out for more supervision or the quality of supervision.⁹⁹

Professional benefits

Improving emotional and communication skills

One benefit of supervision that has been identified in the clinical legal education scholarship which is relevant to practice is its impact on improving emotional and communication skills. This includes teaching students increased empathy,¹⁰⁰ stronger personal and interpersonal skills,¹⁰¹ better general communication skills¹⁰² – including between staff¹⁰³ – and how to engage with clients.¹⁰⁴ With emotional intelligence such a key element of the clinical experience for law students, supervision in these contexts must ‘focus on showing students how to attend to the affective dimensions of the lawyer client relationship’.¹⁰⁵ This may include modelling empathy and openness when difficult materials are raised.¹⁰⁶ Supervision in the clinical setting also provides an opportunity to talk through the emotional experience of lawyering, such as handling client stress, the tension of the adversarial process and dealing with anxiety, frustrations and satisfactions of everyday legal practice.¹⁰⁷ Building emotional capacity and supporting students (or junior lawyers) to put things into perspective¹⁰⁸ may in turn assist in addressing burnout, given that compassionate responses to clients who experience harm and injustice are risk factors for burnout.¹⁰⁹

For ‘helping professionals’, supervisors are able to draw out the interpersonal dynamics of client-professional relationships and support the supervisee to gain greater insight into their impact.¹¹⁰ Social work supervision also foregrounds the professional relationship between practitioner and client.¹¹¹ Such emotional or relational development may be achieved through supported reflection under supervision,¹¹² building students – and junior lawyers’ – capacity to foster appropriate and constructive relationships with clients.¹¹³ This has important parallels in the legal profession, where the work of lawyers may equally be impacted by issues such as countertransference or interpersonal tensions.¹¹⁴ This points to the need for appropriate support for lawyers to process the sometimes emotional demands of working with clients in challenging or traumatic circumstances.

Clinical supervision is also linked across the ‘helping professions’ to a competency-based approach,¹¹⁵ where supervision facilitates the development of key professional skills via interventions such as modelling or Socratic questioning. Beyond, this, developing an awareness of one's beliefs and values – and how these potentially impact on professional decision making – may also help practitioners become more effective.¹¹⁶ In the law school clinic context, Samra and Jones similarly advocate that supervision offers a significant opportunity to move to a competency-based model of professional training that includes relational competencies.¹¹⁷

Fostering ethical practice

In addition to the above benefits, supervision may also improve professionalism and ethical practice. Stuckey et al. suggest that supervised practice is more effective than classroom instruction at instilling professional standards.¹¹⁸ Under close supervision and with an emphasis on reflection, clinical legal education can offer the opportunity for law students to learn how to integrate their personal and ethical goals with legal knowledge and professional skills.¹¹⁹ Supervision for lawyers in practice should have this as a key aim.

In part supervision may improve practice because it mitigates the impact of vicarious trauma and burnout on professionalism. As noted above, these can impact professional skills and cognitive competence.¹²⁰ This may be partly due to the fact that vicarious trauma can cause cognitive bias and, as a result, impact on lawyers’ professional skills,¹²¹ potentially ‘putting at risk the fundamental ethical obligations that attorneys have to … clients’.¹²²

More broadly, supervision may also provide the space for students – and junior lawyers – to develop their understanding of ethical issues and conflicts.¹²³ This may be framed as ethical maturity, which involves building the capacity of junior lawyers to decide the ethical action and take responsibility for such decisions.¹²⁴ Another way in which effective supervision may improve the ethical practice of lawyering is via fostering cross-cultural lawyering or cultural competence.¹²⁵

Workforce retention

Some scholarship suggests that supervision may improve workforce retention. In their review of the literature in the child welfare context, Hazen et al. found that supervisor support was a ‘stronger predictor of worker retention’ than caseload.¹²⁶ A metareview of enablers of effective clinical supervision identified a number of studies that confirmed the positive impact of effective supervision on staff retention.¹²⁷ This may be explained in part by the research on clinical supervision across a number of disciplines which suggests that it improves self-efficacy and job satisfaction,¹²⁸ as well as boosting morale.¹²⁹

In addition, given that the wellbeing factors referred to above clearly contribute to workforce attrition, supervision may improve retention indirectly. Studies in the United States have cited burnout as one of the top five reasons lawyers were considering resigning from their jobs.¹³⁰ Supervision's benefits for emotional and communication skills may also positively impact staff retention. Supervision specifically focused on intra- and interpersonal competence – sometimes called ‘personal skills support’ – has been shown to potentially reduce attrition within high-stress legal workplaces such as the offices of public defenders or legal assistance.¹³¹ In addition, introducing clinical supervision could potentially mitigate some of the negative impacts of the adversarial legal system, which is itself a contributor to lawyer burnout and compassion fatigue.¹³²

A clear case for supervision

In light of the above discussion outlining the benefits of supervision–and some of the individual and organisational risks of inadequate supervision–it is easy to conclude that introducing clinical supervision into legal practice would benefit not only new lawyers, but all members of the profession. As outlined, if implemented effectively, supervision could have a range of positive impacts. For individual lawyers, it may reduce stress and burnout and mitigate the impacts of trauma. It would also improve professionalism by increasing emotional competence and fostering ethical practice, as well as reducing attrition. Of course, not all supervision is equal, and in order for supervision to have these benefits, it must be designed and implemented carefully. The following section outlines some of the considerations that should inform the design of clinical legal supervision.

Considerations for implementation of supervision

The following section considers best practice in clinical supervision. It is not a comprehensive overview of the topic given that most of the literature on clinical supervision is focused on the helping professions.¹³³ Whilst we have drawn in part on this scholarship, it is likely that many enabling factors that make supervision successful in those settings will not translate to the legal practice context. Conversely, given the paucity of scholarship on supervision within legal practice, there may be additional considerations for implementation that have not emerged from the present research.

Research into clinical supervision within the helping professions has pointed to the need for further research into the overall effectiveness of supervision, as well as the specific elements that render it effective.¹³⁴ In any pilot of clinical-style professional supervision of lawyers, it would be important to think about the intended functions of such supervision when designing a supervision model. If clinical legal supervision is not only about substantive legal training and building practical skills,¹³⁵ but must also acknowledge and address the highly emotional and relational nature of the work,¹³⁶ this must be accounted for in the design of any supervisory model. It may be that certain of the elements discussed below are more or less significant to achieve different purposes.

Although research on the topic of clinical supervision has been dominated by the question of what supervision is, rather than what it should be,¹³⁷ there is a growing body of literature addressing this latter concern. In the context of clinical supervision of psychologists, Creaner and Timulak note that since the mid-2000s, clinical supervision has come to be ‘understood as a distinctive professional activity warranting specific competencies and awareness of best practice standards’.¹³⁸ Writing about supervision in its broader sense in the social work context, Adamson argues that supervision is not ‘a politically or organisationally neutral practice but one that must be constantly aware of its context, purpose, and application’.¹³⁹ This suggests that careful and deliberate thought needs to be put into the design of clinical supervision. This is equally true within legal practice. The scholarship suggests a number of features that may improve the efficacy of supervision: that it is regular and ongoing; that it provides a space for self-reflection; that it is trauma-informed; that it establish a safe space for emotional work; and that it facilitates self-care. Supervisors also need to be appropriately trained, partly in order to ensure the quality of the supervisory relationship. Each of these considerations is discussed in turn below, before we consider the gaps in the literature.

Suggestions for best practice

Frequency and length

For supervision to be effective it must be regular. Precisely what this means in the legal context is not clear. The literature suggests that supportive supervisors are seen to ‘commit to regular and consistent supervision, provide personal and professional development, and … serve as guides or expert consultants rather than managers or monitors’.¹⁴⁰ A meta-analysis of research on effective clinical supervision similarly noted the need for supervision to occur regularly.¹⁴¹ This, in turn, facilitates proactive management of stress or trauma, such as appropriate referrals.¹⁴² It has also been found that for supervision to be effective, it should allow for regular and ongoing feedback,¹⁴³ and be allocated sufficient time.¹⁴⁴ In a study of clinical supervision of allied health workers, it was found that sessions of under 60 min were of questionable value.¹⁴⁵ Referring to addressing vicarious trauma amongst trauma counsellors via supervision, Sommer suggested that supervision should be ongoing rather than limited to those in the junior stages of their career.¹⁴⁶

Effective supervision into the legal profession may require structural changes. An important feature of supervision within the contexts of helping professions is that it is often compulsory,¹⁴⁷ which may not be possible within the legal profession without regulatory reform. A metareview of research on effective clinical supervision suggested that supervision should be provided within protected time.¹⁴⁸ A barrier to effective supervision within the legal profession may be billing structures or other time pressures, with almost 50 per cent of respondents to the Queensland Legal Services Commission's Supervision Practices Check in 2011 and 2013 stating that supervision time was not structured into their work schedule.¹⁴⁹

Self-reflection

One of the most important aspects of effective supervision is that it should provide a space for self-reflection.¹⁵⁰ There are numerous dimensions to reflective practice. First, it can serve to prevent errors and improve competence. Secondly, self-reflection can mitigate the impacts of trauma exposure. And finally, it may support critical reflection on the legal system more broadly.

Supervision should be designed to facilitate reflective practice in order to improves professional capabilities. The seminal work of Schön frames reflective practice as ‘reflection-in-action’, an approach that fosters the relationship between reflection and continuous learning.¹⁵¹ Certainly, clinical supervision in the ‘helping professions’ focuses on ‘gaining insight and strengthening good practice skills’.¹⁵² In the legal clinic context as well, self-reflection is seen to instil an ability to learn from experience,¹⁵³ with lifelong professional benefits.¹⁵⁴ This type of reflective approach should also build the capacity of junior lawyers to reveal their mistakes or uncertainty over their practice.¹⁵⁵

Supervision should also build lawyers’ reflective capacity around their emotional wellbeing and experience. If done effectively, this form of reflective practice has been shown to reduce wellbeing issues such as vicarious trauma and burnout.¹⁵⁶ There are various ways in which it might achieve this. Building self-awareness may assist lawyers to analyse how they feel about their clients and casework, potentially enabling them to address any impact this has on their work.¹⁵⁷ Another way it may achieve this is by encouraging lawyers to reflect on their values and how to integrate their personal and professional selves.¹⁵⁸ Reflective practice also allows lawyers to identify for themselves what they need to manage the demands and stress of their work,¹⁵⁹ as well as enabling them to reflect on their emotional responses to trauma and other stressors,¹⁶⁰ and to be more self-compassionate.¹⁶¹

A final aim of supervision may be to support students or practitioners to engage with the structural context of the legal system and to develop a deeper understanding of the law and its application.¹⁶² Indeed, supervision within the legal clinical context generally involves reflective techniques that support the students integrating their clinical experience with broader issues, such as ethics or the theory-practice gap.¹⁶³ This sort of critical reflection may lead to greater engagement with social justice and professional ethics. For Leering, such transformative learning may support law students to ‘develop a perspective on professional responsibility that includes a desire to increase access to justice’.¹⁶⁴

Creating a safe space for emotional work

Given the potential benefits of supervision for lawyer wellbeing, one key consideration is how to ensure it contributes to a safe space for the emotional work of legal practice. Whilst some of the discussion below overlaps with the considerations regarding reflective practice, here the emphasis is on supervisors explicitly engaging with these topics rather than facilitating junior lawyers’ self-awareness. This may include, for instance, providing supervision on trauma and its impact on those working in trauma-exposed fields.¹⁶⁵ In order to do this effectively, the supervisor must offer a psychological safe space.¹⁶⁶

In the clinical legal education context, it has been advocated that supervision should ‘train law students to manage empathy and identification in the lawyering process’,¹⁶⁷ to protect against burnout when they enter the legal profession. These concerns are no less relevant for practising lawyers, as discussed above. Such support may take the form of an analytical framework to ‘facilitate a process through which students may interpret their emotional reactions to their experiences as legal advocates’.¹⁶⁸ Supervision should also be explicitly directed at supporting junior lawyers to identify and deal with vicarious trauma.¹⁶⁹ Building these skills may entail the supervisor sharing their own experiences with the challenges of legal practice¹⁷⁰ or with vicarious trauma,¹⁷¹ and encouraging lawyers to build self-awareness so they can reach out for support if they identify signs of vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue.¹⁷²

Katz suggests that by providing a safe space within which students can explore their emotional responses, law academics ‘can go a long way in modelling professional skills necessary for our students to take into practice’,¹⁷³ such as making it permissible to admit when things are not okay. This is important to ensure that students or junior lawyers receive the support they may need to withstand the stresses of working with trauma-exposed clients.¹⁷⁴ Other strategies adjacent to reflective practice that have also been canvassed. For instance, Cartwright et al suggest that supervisors need to provide safe spaces for junior staff to debrief by modelling disclosure of vicarious trauma and ensuring the workplace culture does not encourage staff to hide the impact of their work.¹⁷⁵ More generally, debriefing has been proposed as an important function of supervision.¹⁷⁶

Trauma-informed supervision

Another field that may inform effective supervision is trauma-informed practice, a therapeutic approach that has increasingly been adapted into the legal profession.¹⁷⁷ Trauma-informed practice can have benefits both for effectively working within the legal profession, as well as addressing the wellbeing issues identified earlier such as burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma.¹⁷⁸ This approach, Katz suggests, is premised on the ‘simple idea’ that:

we build in an appreciation of the potential for trauma holistically into all that we do—not with the goal of diagnosis or treatment, but rather with the goal of expanding our own empathy for those we serve, and creating a feeling of safety for all who participate.¹⁷⁹

A trauma-informed approach focuses on the individual's story rather than what is wrong with them (i.e. apportioning blame),¹⁸⁰ and requires taking into account the non-legal aspects of a person's situation.¹⁸¹ This approach is particularly relevant to the fields identified above namely immigration, criminal law and family practice.¹⁸² Other scholars draw on the concept of therapeutic jurisprudence in their discussion of clinical supervision,¹⁸³ noting its concern with improving the individual client's life. For Brooks, a social worker turned clinical law teacher, therapeutic jurisprudence captures her experience of bringing social work principles to bear on clinical instruction, where she promotes the practice of law in ways that are therapeutic for the client and the student.¹⁸⁴ For a supervisor operating within this paradigm, they need to be able to bring an awareness of the psychological context of the client and the lawyer-client relationship.¹⁸⁵

Bringing therapeutic techniques into supervision reflects a broader movement to ‘reframe law as a healing profession’.¹⁸⁶ A therapeutic approach to supervision involves ‘a flexible inquiry that encourages students to address their loss experiences in real time while allowing them room to return to those experiences as needed’,¹⁸⁷ tailoring it to the needs of the supervisee.¹⁸⁸ This responsive approach would be equally important in a professional setting. In practice, this may look like supporting the individual lawyer to first name their emotional state, then to identify the source of that emotion and finally to work through their response in a constructive and accountable way.¹⁸⁹ Experienced supervisors, James suggests, will know that the most important topics for discussion are often those that the supervisee is most reluctant to raise.¹⁹⁰

Trauma-informed supervision principles have been developed within certain professional contexts, such as counselling, with Sommer referencing supervision guidelines that suggest the need for a grounding in trauma therapy, mutual respect, and educational components that explicitly address vicarious trauma.¹⁹¹ It is crucial for the supervisee to feel safe within the supervision relationship, as well as being empowered to participate actively and at times set the agenda for supervision meetings.¹⁹² In order to provide this type of supervision in an appropriate manner, it may also be beneficial to bring in trained mental health professionals, alongside legally-trained supervisors.¹⁹³

Self-care

A further element of effective supervision that may be incorporated into best practice, again drawn from trauma-informed practice, is that it should model or encourage self-care.¹⁹⁴ Self-care can range from prioritising fundamental needs, such as sleep, good nutrition and physical exercise, to maintaining strong social bonds, pursuing extracurricular interests and building self-awareness.¹⁹⁵ It may also be achieved via reflection, or alternatively can take the form of an individualised self-care plan.¹⁹⁶ One existing tool for self-care is the range of leave available to lawyers.¹⁹⁷ Some researchers suggest that supervisors within legal practice should not only advocate for policies providing sufficient leave, but also encourage staff to use these entitlements.¹⁹⁸

That said, there are scholars who reject the notion that self-care can treat vicarious trauma and instead advocate the need for concrete emotional regulation strategies.¹⁹⁹ Further research is required to determine whether this more approach is more effective than other interventions.

Supervisors must receive adequate training and support

Supervisors must be adequately trained and supported to fulfil their role. Creaner and Timulak, for instance, point to the desirability of explicit supervisor education and training,²⁰⁰ noting that Trinity College, Dublin, has offered a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Supervision since 2004. Whilst this is aimed at health professionals, it potentially offers a model for what might be made available to supervisors in the legal profession. That said, precisely what supervision training would require would depend, ultimately, on the purposes and approach of the supervision itself.

For instance, if a primary purpose of supervision is to assist in identifying and addressing wellbeing issues, specific training on how to respond to stress, anxiety and depression would be crucial.²⁰¹ Within the literature, general mental health training has been shown to be beneficial,²⁰² as well as training in how to identify the warning signs of distress,²⁰³ secondary trauma,²⁰⁴ or other wellbeing issues.²⁰⁵ More broadly, it may be beneficial to provide training to assist the supervisor to identify any challenges to the supervisory relationship itself.²⁰⁶

If supervision is focused on self-reflection, this may also require specific training. Whilst self-reflection is the responsibility of the supervisee,²⁰⁷ it may of course require specific training of supervisors to ensure they are able to support appropriate reflective practice.²⁰⁸ Similarly, if one of the intended purposes of supervision in legal practice is improved outcomes, this may also be an important consideration in this context, and training in how to provide providing effective direction or feedback may be required. Certainly, in the clinical legal education context, a key consideration is how directive supervision should be.²⁰⁹ It may also be necessary to offer supervisors ongoing support such as regular team leader meetings or other professional development focused on supervision.²¹⁰

Fostering a strong supervisory relationship

A final, but no less fundamental, factor for effective supervision is the quality of the supervisor-supervisee relationship.²¹¹ Related to this is the importance of individualising supervision, which speaks to the interpersonal dimension of this practice and the centrality of the supervisor-supervisee relationship.²¹² Because of this, effective supervision is tightly connected to arrangements that nurture a strong supervisory relationship.²¹³ A metareview of scholarship on clinical supervision in medicine found that the quality of the supervisor-supervisee relationship is the most important factor for effective supervision.²¹⁴ The ideal of a collaborative relationship has substantial overlaps with professional mentoring relationships.²¹⁵ Although the legal profession generally seems to see mentoring and supervision as entirely discrete activities, McNamara suggests that separating the two may be simplistic, and that supervision may include mentoring-adjacent activities depending on the function it is intended to fulfil.²¹⁶

The supervisory relationship is particularly crucial to fostering reflective practice, the importance of which was discussed earlier. In order for the supervisor to offer a safe space for such reflection, it is important that there be a collaborative relationship between supervisor and supervisee, in which the supervisor provides a secure base to address lack of confidence or other issues.²¹⁷ For instance, one approach to reflective practice, known as Facilitated Attuned Interaction, asks the supervisor to be ‘attuned’ to the supervisee's processing, in order to support the supervisee to examine their interactions and reduce stress.²¹⁸ What this suggests is that a constructive and attentive supervisory relationship is key to effective supervision.

Gaps in the literature

There are at least two major questions that would need to be addressed in the design of clinical-based professional supervisions of lawyers. These are whether such supervision must be provided by an experienced legal professional and whether supervision must be individual or could be equally effective if provided in a group setting.

A key unanswered question is the role of the supervisor, particularly whether the supervisor should be legally trained and experienced. In the social work and psychology literature, psychologists supervise psychologists, and social workers supervise social workers. In legal education clinics, experienced law academics, usually with practice backgrounds, supervise law students. The literature on supervision in legal practice settings is silent as to whether practising lawyers would benefit most from supervision from more experienced lawyers, or whether the debriefing and emotional management skills of social workers or psychologists would be beneficial. It may be that a combination of both is required. That said, what is clear is that clinical supervision should be separated from line management supervision.²¹⁹

Although there is limited information about the details of these programs, a number of the interventions currently in place to address wellbeing issues within the legal setting involve non-legally trained facilitators. This is the case for both the Judicial Resilience Program, introduced in the mid-2010s to provide Victorian judges the opportunity to debrief with professional counsellors about traumatic cases,²²⁰ and a program based on the Facilitated Attuned Interaction model for judges in Nebraska.²²¹ Other workplaces have brought in external experts in mental health to assist with the recognition and management of wellbeing issues,²²² whilst in some clinical legal education settings debriefing is conducted with peers.²²³ Whether non legally trained professionals are appropriate supervisors in the legal context requires further consideration. One factor to keep in mind is that experienced lawyers would be more capable of navigating the specific ethical and professional demands of legal practice. Given the benefits of supervision for supporting lawyers in integrating their professional and personal selves, and in terms of improving practice, this may suggest that legal experience is a benefit.

The literature is also not clear on the benefits of group over individual supervision. Most legal clinic supervision is group focused. There are also examples where group-based reflective processes have been developed to provide a space to build reflective capacity, as well as to debrief and share trauma,²²⁴ but these approaches do not fit within the understanding of supervision outlined above. In legal practice settings, group supervision may stifle the level of open communication required to glean the benefits discussed above, as both junior and senior lawyers may wish to present themselves as capable and untroubled. Conversely, resourcing limitations may make individual supervision difficult to provide in practice settings. Similarly, the literature does not provide guidance on the benefits of face-to-face over online supervision.

Conclusion

The parallels between the practice of law and other disciplines, such as psychology and social work, are undeniable. These similarities underscore the potential for the legal profession to adopt and adapt clinical supervision approaches from these fields, as convincingly argued by McNamara.²²⁵ The call for greater structure in supervised legal practice, including the practical component of practical legal training, is a testament to the need for a more robust and comprehensive approach to supervision in the legal profession. The benefits of clinical supervision, while well-documented in the context of law students, are equally applicable to practising lawyers, regardless of their level of experience. This paper has initiated a crucial conversation on how these benefits can be realised within the legal profession, but it is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The next phase of this exploration must involve a more detailed examination of how clinical supervision guidelines from other disciplines can be tailored to the unique needs and challenges of legal practice. This will require a thoughtful and nuanced approach, taking into consideration the specificities of the legal profession and the diverse needs of its practitioners. Significant challenges to implementing clinical supervision in legal practice may remain, including the individualistic nature of the legal profession and the inherent conservatism of the profession. An additional challenge is the diversity of legal practice contexts which vary from large corporations to government and small suburban law firms.²²⁶ Our discussion above suggests that any initial model should be individual, regular and ongoing supervision with an emphasis on building reflective capacity and creating a safe space for emotional work. Further design elements need to be developed based on the intended functions of supervision. This may require a deeper dive into the literature on these specific purposes or aims, drawing on scholarship from professional contexts such as psychology, social work or psychotherapy. The model must then be tested in legal practice and thoroughly evaluated to provide an evidence base to ascertain whether the benefits from legal clinics and non-legal disciplines can be realised in legal practice setting. This will help to address the missing empirical evidence on the question of supervision in legal practice.

In conclusion, the adoption of clinical supervision within legal practice is not just a promising avenue – it may be a necessary step towards enhancing the quality of legal practice and the wellbeing of legal professionals. This paper serves as a call to action for further research and discussion on this vital topic, with the ultimate goal of fostering a more supportive, resilient, and effective legal profession.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Legal Aid New South Wales.

Notes on contributors

Meribah Rose

Dr Meribah Rose is a sociolegal scholar with an interest in representations of crime and violence and more broadly the conceptualisation of justice. Her current research focuses on miscarriages of justice and their redress, including the procedural facilitators and roadblocks of uncovering wrongful convictions. She has a PhD in cultural studies from the University of Melbourne, with her doctoral research focused on questions of ethics and justice in the films of Pedro Almodóvar. As an interdisciplinary scholar, her research draws from and contributes to the fields of critical legal studies, law and humanities and cultural criminology.

Chris Maylea

Associate Professor Chris Maylea is a social worker, lawyer, and Associate Professor of law at La Trobe University. He has practice experience in mental health services as a social worker and manager, provides advice to government and policy reform bodies. Associate Professor Maylea's work sits at the intersections of health, welfare and the law, and is underpinned by human rights and social justice. He is the author of over 70 peer-reviewed publications and commissioned reports, and is the author of 'Social work and the Law: a guide for ethical practice'.

He has conducted evaluations of health and advocacy services, empirical research on interdisciplinary practice advance statements, gender-based violence in mental health inpatient units, child protection, elder abuse, and doctrinal and human rights analyses. His work uses codesign approaches, with a focus on promoting the voice of people who use health and welfare services.

Associate Professor Maylea has extensive experience before the Victorian Mental Health Tribunal as a legal representative. He previously managed and evaluated mainstream Aboriginal and child and family community mental health services, rehabilitation units and assertive outreach and support services in regional areas. He has served as Chair and Deputy Chair of the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC).

Notes

1 McNamara (2020), p. 93.

2 McNamara (2020), p. 101.

3 McNamara (2020), p. 98.

4 Tyler (2016), p. 4.

5 Adamson (2012), p. 187.

6 McNamara (2020), p. 101.

7 Hawkins and Shohet (2012), p. 26.

8 Hawkins and Shohet (2012), p. 26.

9 Castles and Boothby (2019).

10 Giddings and McNamara (2014), p. 1244.

11 Weinberg (2021), p. 21.

12 Smyth and Overholt (2014), p. 76.

13 Adamson (2012), pp. 193–194.

14 See for instance Parsonson and Alquicira (2019), p. 2019.

15 McNamara (2020), p. 212.

16 McNamara (2020), p. 178.

17 Giddings and McNamara (2014), p. 1226.

18 Barry (1995); Berkheiser (1999); Cooke and Taylor (1978); Doucet (2014); Dunlap and Joy (2004); Evans et al (2016); Fishel et al (2021); Fletcher and Weinstein (2002); Giddings (2008); Giddings (2015); Howard (1995); O’Grady (1997); Rice et al (2012); Samra and Jones (2019); Shalleck (1993); and Shanahan and Benfer (2013).

19 Reuter et al (2019), p. 126.

20 Samra and Jones (2019), p. 410.

21 Brooks et al (2022), p. 373.

22 Katz (2022), p. 759; Scott (2018); and Tyler (2016), p. 9.

23 Bozin et al (2020); Burton and Paton (2021), p. 98; Castles and Boothby (2019); and Kelk (2009).

24 Buhler (2014), p. 399.

25 Bozin et al (2020), p. 214; Chan (2014), p. 213; Heath et al (2017); Iversen and Robertson (2021); James (2005), p. 200; Kelk (2009); Norton et al (2016); Poynton et al (2018); Scott (2018); Soon et al (2022); Tyler (2016); and Weir et al (2021).

26 Allman (2015) and Cole-Mossman et al (2018).

27 Le (2022), p. 487; Rothwell (2020), p. 32; and Tyler (2016), p. 7.

28 Cover (2015).

29 Hazen et al (2020), p. 1; Otey (2014), p. 168; and Tyler (2016), p. 8.

30 Ashley (2019); Bradey (2022); Dublin (2023); Elwork (2008); Netzel (2022); Niebler (2019); Richardson (2020); and R. Rothwell (2020).

31 Hott and Waugh (2019), p. 245, Richardson (2020), p. 163 and Scott (2018), p. 644.

32 Lawson (2021), p. 68.

33 Bradey (2022), p. 17.

34 Stuckey (2007), p. 58.

35 Uphoff et al (1996), p. 409.

36 Nelson and St. Cyr (2015), p. 101.

37 Cole-Mossman et al (2018), p. 91.

38 Brooks et al (2022), pp. 379–380.

39 Giddings (2010), p. 34.

40 Lawson (2021), p. 99.

41 Harris and Mellinger (2021), p. 746, and Sommer (2008), pp. 62–63.

42 Tyler (2016), p. 5.

43 Cartwright et al (2020), p. 24.

44 Otey (2014), pp. 161–163.

45 Zwisohn et al (2019), p. 282.

46 Otey (2014), p. 162 and Tyler (2016), p. 5.

47 Pirelli et al (2020), pp. 2–3.

48 Edwards (2001), p. 73.

49 Zwisohn et al (2019), p. 282.

50 Knuckey et al (2017) and Satterthwaite et al (2019).

51 Brandon and Kochanski (2020) and Katz (2022).

52 Harris and Mellinger (2021).

53 Smyth and Overholt (2014), p. 70.

54 Norton et al (2016), p. 987 and Otey (2014), p. 164.

55 Parsonson and Alquicira (2019), p. 2019.

56 Norton et al (2016), pp. 287–288.

57 Weir et al (2022), p. 611.

58 Pirelli et al (2020), p. 3.

59 Satterthwaite et al (2019), p. 480.

60 James (2020), p. 287.

61 Otey (2014), p. 160.

62 Anderson (2000), p. 841; James (2008b), pp. 95–96; James (2008a), p. 136; Poynton et al (2018), p. 589; and Zwisohn et al (2019), p. 282.

63 Nelson and St. Cyr (2015), p. 101 and Zwisohn et al (2019), p. 286.

64 C. Rothwell et al (2021), p. 4.

65 Castles and Boothby (2019), p. 128.

66 Harris and Mellinger (2021), p. 746 and Sommer (2008), pp. 62–63.

67 Brobst (2014).

68 Iversen and Robertson (2021), pp. 817 & 819.

69 Brobst (2014), p. 7.

70 Otey (2014), p. 168; Pirelli et al (2020), p. 1; Tyler (2016), p. 6; Vrklevski and Franklin (2008), p. 106; and Zwisohn et al (2019), p. 282.

71 Allman (2015), p. 39 and Vrklevski and Franklin (2008), p. 106.

72 Norton et al (2016), p. 988.

73 Carnes (2017), p. 9 and Zwisohn et al (2019), p. 282.

74 Bradey (2022), p. 16 and Cartwright et al (2020), p. 25.

75 Novak (2020), p. 48.

76 Tyler (2016), p. 6.

77 Dublin (2023).

78 Katz (2022), p. 769.

79 Fines and Madsen (2006), p. 994 and Levin and Greisberg (2003).

80 Weir et al (2022).

81 Iversen and Robertson (2021) and Levin et al (2012), p. 545.

82 Cartwright et al (2020).

83 Allman (2015); Harris and Mellinger (2021); and Rønning et al (2020).

84 Brobst (2014); Fines and Madsen (2006); Jenkins (2013); Katz (2022); and Katz and Haldar (2016).

85 Fletcher and Weinstein (2002); Knuckey et al (2017); and Satterthwaite et al (2019).

86 Burton and Paton (2021); Saifee (2021); and Vrklevski and Franklin (2008).

87 Levin et al (2012); Poynton et al (2018); Tyler (2016); and Zwisohn et al (2019).

88 Cobb et al (2019) and Hazen et al (2020).

89 Norton et al (2016), p. 988.

90 Burton and Paton (2021), p. 96 and R. Rothwell (2020), p. 35.

91 Harris and Mellinger (2021), p. 810, and Weir et al (2021), p. 364.

92 Fines and Madsen (2006), p. 994; Harris and Mellinger (2021), p. 810; and Levin and Greisberg (2003).

93 Brandon and Kochanski (2020), p. 140; James (2020), p. 284; Katz (2022), p. 770; Knuckey et al (2017), p. 300; Novak (2020), p. 45; Parsonson and Alquicira (2019), p. 2021; and Pirelli et al (2020), p. 8.

94 Brandon and Kochanski (2020), p. 140.

95 See Harris and Mellinger (2021), p. 802.

96 Allman (2015), p. 43; Burton and Paton (2021), p. 98; Harris and Mellinger (2021), p. 802; Levin and Greisberg (2003), p. 252; Norton et al (2016), p. 993; and Otey (2014), p. 170.

97 Carnes (2017) and Katz (2020).

98 Rønning et al (2020).

99 Rønning et al (2020), pp. 672–673.

100 Lawton et al (2022), p. 13.

101 Evans et al (2016), p. 74 and Westaby (2014), pp. 249 & 251.

102 McNamara (2020), p. 106.

103 Clarke (2011), p. 347.

104 James and Ross (2016), p. 231.

105 Buhler (2014), p. 410.

106 Katz (2020), p. 37.

107 James (2005), p. 136.

108 Castles and Boothby (2019), p. 129.

109 Westaby (2014), p. 274.

110 Brooks (2005), p. 215; Falender and Shafranske (2017), p. 88; and Silver (2009), p. 148.

111 Brooks (2005), p. 520.

112 James (2005), p. 141; Katz and Haldar (2016), p. 22; and Silver (2009), p. 148.

113 Berkheiser (1999), p. 1165 and Brooks (2006), p. 225.

114 Silver (2009), pp. 148–149.

115 Falender & Shafranske (2017) and Samra and Jones (2019), p. 395.

116 Barrette (2002).

117 Samra and Jones (2019), p. 409.

118 Stuckey (2007), p. 113.

119 James (2005), p. 130.

120 Katz (2022), p. 769.

121 Katz (2022), p. 769.

122 Cartwright et al (2020), p. 25.

123 Edwards (2001), p. 67; Litaba (2013), p. 39; and McNamara (2020), p. 115.

124 McNamara (2020), p. 116.

125 Brooks et al (2022), p. 381; and Lopez (2008).

126 Hazen et al (2020), p. 9.

127 C. Rothwell et al (2021), p. 4.

128 Clarke (2011), p. 347.

129 McNamara (2020), p. 106.

130 Otey (2014), p. 166.

131 Silver (2009), p. 158.

132 Norton et al (2016), p. 995.

133 McNamara (2020), p. 98.

134 Alfonsson et al (2018), p. 220 and Simpson-Southward et al (2017), p. 1243.

135 Dickson (1998).

136 Buhler (2014), p. 410; Fishel et al (2021), p. 336; Fletcher and Weinstein (2002), p. 144; and Gascon-Cuenca et al (2018).

137 McNamara (2020), p. 105.

138 Creaner and Timulak (2016), p. 201 (citations omitted).

139 Adamson (2012), p. 186.

140 Hazen et al (2020), p. 9.

141 C. Rothwell et al (2021), p. 1.

142 Zwisohn et al (2019), p. 288.

143 McNamara (2020), p. 109.

144 McNamara (2020), p. 108.

145 Saxby et al (2015), p. 480.

146 Sommer (2008), p. 64.

147 Niebler (2019), p. 19.

148 C. Rothwell et al (2021).

149 Giddings and McNamara (2014).

150 Carnes (2017), p. 30; Evans et al (2016), p. 234; Katz (2022), p. 774; Katz and Haldar (2016), p. 16; Samra and Jones (2019), pp. 401–403; and Silver (2009), p. 157.

151 Schön (1983).

152 Carnes (2017), p. 36.

153 Barrette (2002), p. 14; Berkheiser (1999), p. 1160; Enos and Kanter (2002), p. 113; and Leering (2014), p. 88.

154 Crowder (2015), pp. 433–434.

155 Enos and Kanter (2002), p. 117.

156 Brandon (2015), pp. 42–43; Cobb et al (2019); Cole-Mossman et al (2018); Hazen et al (2020); and Katz (2022), p. 774.

157 Fletcher and Weinstein (2002), p. 145.

158 Leering (2014), p. 98.

159 Engle (2015), p. 4.

160 Niebler (2019), p. 19.

161 Brooks et al (2022), p. 384 and James (2020), p. 289.

162 Carnes (2017), p. 36 and Evans et al (2016), p. 7.

163 Batt (2015), p. 148 and Weinberg (2021), p. 30.

164 Leering (2014), p. 97.

165 Harris and Mellinger (2021), p. 810 and Knuckey et al (2017), p. 300.

166 Creaner and Timulak (2016), p. 203.

167 Fletcher and Weinstein (2002), p. 136.

168 Fletcher and Weinstein (2002), pp. 147–148.

169 Baker (1999), p. 21; Cartwright et al (2020), p. 32; and Katz and Haldar (2016), p. 29.

170 Katz (2020), p. 34.

171 Cartwright et al (2020), p. 32 and Engle (2015), p. 9.

172 Jenkins (2013), p. 395.

173 Katz (2020), p. 34.

174 Enos and Kanter (2002), p. 97.

175 Cartwright et al (2020), p. 37.

176 Burton and Paton (2021), p. 97.

177 Katz (2020).

178 Carnes (2017), p. 2.

179 Katz (2022), p. 760.

180 Carnes (2017), p. 9.

181 Katz and Haldar (2016), p. 376.

182 Katz (2022), p. 760; Katz (2020); and Katz and Haldar (2016).

183 Berkheiser (1999), p. 1148; Brooks (2006); Cooney (2004); Gould and Perlin (2000); Marson et al (2019); and Wright (2004).

184 Brooks (2005), p. 517.

185 Berkheiser (1999), p. 1165.

186 Leering (2014), p. 89.

187 Cover (2015), p. 74.

188 James (2020), p. 287.

189 Cover (2015), p. 75.

190 James (2020), p. 286.

191 Sommer (2008), p. 64.

192 James (2020), p. 286.

193 Bozin et al (2020), p. 249; Engle (2015), p. 14; Saifee (2021); and Tyler (2016), p. 28.

194 Bozin et al (2020), pp. 257–258; Doucet (2014), p. 145; Engle (2015); James (2020), pp. 287–288; Nelson and St. Cyr (2015); and Samra and Jones (2019), pp. 403–405.

195 Niebler (2019), p. 19 and Sommer (2008), p. 65.

196 Katz (2020), p. 37.

197 Satterthwaite et al (2019), pp. 531–534.

198 Cartwright et al (2020), p. 36.

199 Pirelli et al (2020), p. 9.

200 Creaner and Timulak (2016), pp. 203–205; and McNamara (2020), pp. 162–163.

201 Cobb et al (2019); Poynton et al (2018), p. 615; and C. Rothwell et al (2021).

202 Satterthwaite et al (2019), pp. 499 & 511.

203 Zwisohn et al (2019), p. 288.

204 Le (2022), p. 494.

205 Fletcher and Weinstein (2002), p. 148.

206 Enos and Kanter (2002), p. 123.

207 Hawkins and Shohet (2012), p. 16 and McNamara (2020), p. 110.

208 Burton and Paton (2021), p. 97.

209 Critchlow (1990); O’Grady (1997); and Stark et al (1993).

210 Enos and Kanter (2002), p. 126.

211 Creaner and Timulak (2016), p. 203.

212 McNamara (2020), p. 108 and Rice et al (2012), p. 55.

213 Giddings and McNamara (2014); McNamara (2020), p. 108; and Sommer (2008), p. 64.

214 Kilminster and Jolly (2000), p. 828; see also McNamara (2020), p. 106.

215 Baker (1999), p. 17.

216 McNamara (2020), pp. 104–105.

217 Bogo (2015), p. 319 and Chircop Coleiro et al (2023), p. 197.

218 Cole-Mossman et al (2018), p. 92 and Hazen et al (2020).

219 Creaner and Timulak (2016), p. 202 and Poynton et al (2018), p. 616.

220 Allman (2015), p. 43.

221 Cole-Mossman et al (2018), p. 91.

222 Cobb et al (2019).

223 Bryant & Milstein (2007), p. 212.

224 Cobb et al (2019); Cover (2015), pp. 80–81; and Kruse (2013), p. 32.

225 McNamara (2020), p. 110.

226 McNamara (2020), p. 43.