Judicial Life/
Emotion, compassion and judging.

Judicial Wellbeing event

Tuesday 16th September 2025

Seminar | 4:30 PM-6:00 PM

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​​Enhanced emotion awareness enables judicial officers to strategically manage their responses to the demands of their work and improve wellbeing. In turn, this contributes to public confidence in judicial impartiality.  ​ 

​​Carefully managed emotion can be a useful resource for judicial officers to oversee their courtroom or tribunal and inform their decision-making. Join Professor Kathy Mack as she shares her research findings on the use and synthesis of emotion in the everyday work of judicial officers. Judge Anthony Hopkins, Local Court of the Northern Territory and an Honorary Associate Professor at the ANU College of Law, will reflect on the role of compassion and emotion in judging.  

​ ​You will:  

  • ​enhance your awareness of emotion in your judicial work  

  • ​develop strategies to deploy your emotions in a meaningful and fair way   

  • ​gain insights into how to consciously manage the emotions that are embedded in your working life to benefit your wellbeing.  

Note: This program is open to judicial officers only.

Speakers.

Northern Territory Local Court. 
Judge Anthony Hopkins

Judge Anthony Hopkins is an Judge of the Local Court of the Northern Territory and an Honorary Associate Professor at the ANU College of Law.  Anthony began his career as a criminal defence lawyer in Mparntwe/Alice Springs at the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service. His Honour practiced as criminal defence barrister in the ACT from 2010 to 2021 when he was appointed as a Special Magistrate to sit with Aboriginal Elders in the Galambany Circle Sentencing Court in the ACT. In 2024, Judge Hopkins was appointed as an Acting Judge of the ACT Supreme Court where he presided over the Drug and Alcohol Sentencing List until his appointment to the bench in the Northern Territory.   

His Honour's research, teaching and courtroom practice is focused on colonialism, inequality and marginalisation as they shape, intersect with and are compounded by the criminal justice system. His Honour has a professional, personal and scholarly commitment to exploring the links between therapeutic jurisprudence, equality and compassion, where compassion is understood as the foundation that motivates and enables turning towards those who are caught in the criminal justice system and as a guiding principle for system redesign. 

Flinders University
Emeritus Professor Kathy Mack

Kathy Mack is Emerita Professor, Flinders University, College of Business Government and Law. Before coming to Australia, Kathy practiced law in California, mainly criminal law. She is the author of a monograph, book chapters and articles on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and articles on legal education and evidence. Since 1994, in collaboration with Sharyn Roach Anleu, Mattehw Flinders Distinguished Professor at Flinders University, she has undertaken socio-legal research into Australian courts and judiciary, beginning with investigating the production of guilty pleas, and continuing with research into the everyday work of the judiciary, through the Judicial Reserch Project at Flinders University.  Books include Judging and Emotion: A Socio-Legal Analysis (Routledge 2021) and Performing Judicial Authority in the Lower Courts (Palgrave 2017). Most recently, Kathy was commissioned by the AIJA to prepare the 2024 version of Suggested Criteria for Judicial Appointment. A full list of books, articles and presentations can be found at the Judicial Research Project website.