The Trauma-Informed Lawyer · Myrna McCallum

Trauma and Transformation In the Judiciary: A Conversation with Judge Kael McKenzie

·59 min·4 clips

Myrna McCollum connects residential school claims to fears that her grandchildren could be taken.

1. The Trauma-Informed Lawyer episode titled “Trauma and Transformation in the Judiciary” examines trauma-informed lawyering through Myrna McCollum’s conversation with Judge Cale McKenzie. 2. Myrna McCollum is a Métis Cree lawyer and host, while Cale McKenzie is a Manitoba provincial court judge who primarily hears criminal matters in Winnipeg. 3. The conversation asks whether trauma-informed education can reduce harm to courtroom participants and improve the sustainability of legal work. 4. McKenzie says his law school education covered legal principles and doctrines but did not address trauma or the human factor. 5. McKenzie argues that law students arrive with trauma and that trauma-informed learning should begin on the first day of law school. 6. He says trauma-informed practice can prevent re-victimizing or re-traumatizing people who bring difficult life experiences into court. 7. McKenzie identifies vicarious trauma as a professional risk for judges who hear criminal cases involving severe events. 8. He describes a judicial session where senior judges reported not being able to cry, losing joy, feeling suspicious, and experiencing anger. 9. McKenzie suggests that joint statements of facts can limit courtroom exposure when the facts are not contested and the dispute concerns a narrower legal issue. 10. He says image synopses or private review can sometimes avoid displaying intimate or disturbing images to everyone in open court. 11. McCollum explains that vicarious trauma differs from compassion fatigue, which she describes as depletion that time away may replenish. 12. McCollum describes burnout as connected to a draining or unsatisfying job, while vicarious trauma can alter a professional’s worldview. 13. After adjudicating residential school claims, McCollum realized her fear about her grandchildren’s safety was connected to elders’ stories about children being taken. 14. McKenzie says judges’ personal trauma does not automatically make them less capable and that recognizing it can improve understanding of people appearing in court. 15. McKenzie connects the need for trauma awareness in Canadian courts to Indigenous experiences of colonization and the residential school legacy. 16. He says diversity on the bench can create accessible sources of education when judges have questions about transgender, non-binary, Métis, or other lived experiences. 17. McKenzie recalls that his appointment as Canada’s first openly transgender judge brought overwhelming attention and sometimes diverted focus from his qualifications. 18. The interview format is a candid, reflective exchange in which McCollum and McKenzie discuss self-care, humility, boundaries, and professional change during the COVID-19 pandemic. 19. Indigenous lawyers, judges, and legal professionals seeking sustainable courtroom practice. 20. Listeners seeking procedural law without mental-health or identity discussions may skip it.

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