Whether through systemic operation or the guidance of process, lawyers exist to be servants to the public. It is required by our profession and our rules of ethics to be trusted, competent and zealous fiduciaries for our clients, but sometimes, the lines between work and the self blur.

The KU School of Law occasionally gives away books in its law library. One of those books I picked up was a book on Chinese philosophy. Mo Tzu’s “Universal Love” provides interesting material to reflect on when applied to the role of lawyers. Mo Tzu’s thesis preaches benevolence and proper guidance to let a society grow. Our position as lawyers affords us positions and power to shape how legal policy should be best implemented for the growth of our society, but it also allows us the ability to shape our clients’ lives. Lawyers live with heavy responsibility to our clients and society. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” ¹

As in other moral texts like the Mahabharata, which states “making right conduct one’s main focus, treating others as you treat yourself” or the Bible, which states, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you,” Mo Tzu writes about empathy and the duty we owe our fellow human, stating “it is the business of the benevolent man to try and promote what is beneficial to the working man and eliminate what is harmful.” He criticizes partiality by saying “the believer in partiality says, ‘how could I possibly regard my friend the same as myself, or my friend’s father the same as my own?’ Because he views his friend in this way, he will not feed him when he is hungry, clothe him when he is cold, nourish him when he is sick or bury him when he dies. Such are the words of the partial man, and such are his actions.” Mo Tzu believes that only through treating others the same as the self can a society progress.

As future lawyers, it is our business to promote what is beneficial and eliminate what is harmful for our clients. Mo Tzu’s writing on “Universal Love” reminded me of a conversation I had about vicarious trauma and how to protect myself from giving too much to my work. Mo Tzu would indicate we should be fair and impartial in our actions to others, to treat them as ourselves, but as lawyers we must represent our clients partially. Our decisions have a greater impact than just ourselves, or our immediate surroundings, it affects generations of people we cannot know. If we are to have universal love for our fellow human, how should we deal with the vicarious trauma that comes from the stress of being someone’s primary support network? How do we reconcile with the adversarial system?

Lawyers are often on the front line of a person’s most emotional time. Vicarious trauma leads to someone needing to shut down empathy out of self-preservation. Vicarious trauma may slowly shift our values away from empathy to protect ourselves from the pain and suffering of others. Vicarious trauma is well documented in high-stress environments, especially among those fields of victim services, law enforcement, emergency medical services and fire services due to their continuous exposure to victims of trauma and violence.² Even still, lawyers have a responsibility not just to engage in the process but also effectuate change on behalf of their clients. It is a lawyer’s responsibility to care.

It is our duty to think and reconcile with broader societal paradigms of how to wield the vast power and privileges our education provides to us, while balancing personal relationships and work pressures. “Lawyers with large workloads of confronting cases who often work in relative isolation in a hostile, adversarial atmosphere may experience high levels of stress and compassion fatigue, particularly in their interactions with victims of crime, tragic scenarios of death in the coronial context, family law, child protection, asylum-seeker litigation and pro bono work.”³ ABA Model Rule 6.1 sets an aspirational goal of 50 hours per year for pro bono work, adopted by 26 jurisdictions.⁴ This paradoxical need to care and be responsible for clients, while also experiencing cases that cause recoil, stress and compassion fatigue are likely the cause of substance abuse issues prevalent through the profession. This ends up being a balance between caring too much and not caring enough. It is good enough to have empathy without compromising your own mental health.

Leadership, power and high responsibility bring constant worry, stress, sleeplessness and heavy burdens. Lawyers should aim to have outlets and systems that make it so that they can separate their professional and personal lives.

- Sidharth Mohan is a 3L KU Law Student Ambassador from West Palm Beach, Florida

Additional links and resources: 

A Lawyer’s Guide for Recognizing and Coping with Vicarious Trauma

¹ King Henry the Fourth, Part 2 (Act 3, Scene 1)

² The Vicarious Trauma Toolkit

³ Vicarious trauma among legal practitioners and judicial officers

⁴ Alyssa Saunders, (Sept. 10, 2026), https://www.probonoinst.org/wp-content/uploads/Annual-Pro-Bono-Hours-Goal-Guide-1.pdf.