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How Public Interest Lawyers Manage the Emotive Dimension of Their Work

Monica Lea et al.

Review of Public Personnel Administration2026https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251399925article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

There is a significant emotive dimension to the work of public interest lawyers (PILs), whose jobs involve working with traumatized clients in a high-stakes legal environment. This vital public service profession represents marginalized clients, many of whom face extraordinary challenges. These attorneys must maintain their own composure as they simultaneously manage their clients’ emotional distress and legal predicaments. Drawing on interviews of PILs, we identify themes related to emotion regulation, vicarious trauma, burnout, and resilience. Findings reveal that PILs leverage emotion to build the trust that is essential for effective legal advocacy and they do this while navigating client trauma and systemic injustice. Compounding the emotive burden are risks of secondary trauma and feelings of institutional betrayal. Findings also reveal strategies that PILs employ to thrive, including on-ramps and off-ramps they use to set boundaries around the emotive demands of their work. HR implications are discussed.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251399925

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@article{monica2026,
  title        = {{How Public Interest Lawyers Manage the Emotive Dimension of Their Work}},
  author       = {Monica Lea et al.},
  journal      = {Review of Public Personnel Administration},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x251399925},
}

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How Public Interest Lawyers Manage the Emotive Dimension of Their Work

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.