Speaking on a recent episode of the Lawyers Weekly Show, she discussed the importance of having and setting boundaries, particularly when having demanding clients in her practice area of criminal law.

Turnbull started her firm in 2011 and now has 10 staff, as well as a large support staff to assist in dealing with clients.

“Particularly in criminal law, it’s not just about doing the legal work. There’s a lot of administrative work associated with it and, frankly, a lot of therapeutic work that you do for your clients. So, we need a lot of support teams. So, we have law students that are on our admin team, and we have career admin support as well,” she said.

“The subject matter can be really traumatic, not just from the nature of the charges or the allegations of your client’s conduct but [also] in terms of the traumatic circumstances that your client has very often got in their history. People have been through an awful lot. Most people don’t wake up and decide to commit crime one day.

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“It’s usually something that has been a part of a longer, probably unresolved or untreated series of traumas that have occurred in their life. And you take it on board as a criminal lawyer, because not only do you read the material on the brief, you read a lot about your client, you spend a lot of time talking to your clients, and you inevitably take on some of their emotional baggage.”

To deal with clients while also looking after herself and her own mental health, Turnbull has a “very strict divide” between her working life and personal life.

“I’m very big on the importance of having external relationships and friendships outside of the criminal law industry. So that way, when I catch up with my friends, we don’t just talk shop. I have hobbies. I’m a very keen horse rider. I compete in that space as well. I do things and I go out of my way to find activities to do which force my brain to turn off,” she said.

“But I do, and I have continued to, educate myself a lot more in the wellness space. And I think as an employer, we’ve really had to think about how we protect our staff moving forward, you know, and always trying to improve that, because it is, or it can certainly be, a job where vicarious trauma is very real.”

In terms of setting proper boundaries with her clients and between her work and personal life, Turnbull has given a speech to “many clients” over the years, and recently wrote in a post on LinkedIn discussing the professional duties lawyers have, stating: “I’m not your girlfriend, I’m not your mother, I’m not your psychologist, your secretary, your bro or your mate. I am your lawyer. It’s my job to be honest with you above all else.”

Having clear lines in place, she said, happens fairly early on in her relationships with clients.

“I try and be really transparent about what they can expect from me and where the boundaries lie and particularly with clients who are in custody, some of whom don’t have a particularly strong network. And in terms of what my support staff do, we do a lot of work that you would consider to be non-legal work for our clients. We’re constantly chasing up things – there seems to be a strong theme of managing and helping people with their pets or we’re chasing down contacts for them so that they can have people on their phone list. To me, that’s fine; that’s part of what we do.

“But there are those clients that really do push the boundaries; I’ve had examples over the years, one of which resulted in me being interviewed by the Fraud Squad about some documentation that a client provided to [me] that was improperly obtained and material that actually belonged on the prosecution file, that somehow we’d obtained a copy of. And the client wanted me to use that material to their advantage,” Turnbull added.

“I knew by looking at the material that we should never have had it and that it was obviously somehow inappropriately obtained, and it was very difficult to manage that client relationship while also managing my own professional relationships and, frankly, to protect my practising certificate. And in that particular case, the material, I returned it. But there are real-world consequences. And it’s important that clients understand that as much as we’re here to help you and here to work with you, there are limitations on what we can do for you.”

When trying to figure out which boundaries to set and how to set them, Turnbull said that viewing things from a third-party perspective can often help, as well as turning to others in the legal community for advice.

“The best thing people can do is speak with others in the community, speak with your mentors, speak with your supervisors and they should be able to give you some good guidance and look at what the people in the industry who are successful or that have, in your view, a successful practice, and either ask them or watch them and perhaps learn from that as well.

“We all have different personality types, and I certainly suspect that there are situations that lawyers may have found themselves in where they feel they need to keep a client for the firm because they know it’s a high-value client or it’s an important client or someone that’s got a longstanding relationship with the firm. So there probably are different pressures on different people in different situations,” she added.

“I think the key takeaway really is if something happens and if any part of you questions, is this the right thing? Speak with someone. Speak with someone who you trust or speak with someone who is your mentor or your supervisor or a consultant or someone within the industry that you trust and get some guidance. Because sometimes, we don’t know that what we’re doing is perhaps not the best move until after it’s done.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Emma Turnbull, click below: