Alert but not Alarmed: A Response to Parker’s Critique of Wellbeing Scholarship in Law

Abstract

This article explores the wellbeing of law students. In Australia, empirical research has consistently indicated that law students experience elevated levels of psychological distress. Christine Parker has critiqued wellbeing scholarship, questioning empirical research methodologies, reporting style and data analysis. She contends that wellbeing scholars are facilitating a ‘moral panic’. Her concern is that wellbeing is being individualised to the extent that important social, political and economic problems are being ignored. Consequently, she proposes that traditional legal ethics discourse, and the concept of ‘sociological imagination’, offer potential as universal wellbeing interventions. This article contends that Parker has misinterpreted the position of wellbeing scholars. It argues that wellbeing scholars operate according to a more complex conceptual framework than she suggests. It proposes that Parker’s exploration of the empirical evidence is incomplete, and that her criticism of the research methodologies is unjustified. It suggests that theories regarding the cause of law student psychological distress are most potent when regarded as additive. It proposes that both wellbeing scholars and legal ethics scholars should explicitly promote a conception of a lawyer who is both psychologically healthy and supported by a community directed towards a meaningful public purpose.