This article examines continuing misunderstanding about memory function especially for trauma, across three UK samples (N = 717). Delayed allegations of child sexual and physical abuse are prevalent in Western legal systems and often rely upon uncorroborated memory testimony to prove guilt. U.K. legal professionals and jurors typically assess the reliability of such memory recall via common sense, yet decades of scientific research show common sense beliefs often conflict with science. Recent international surveys show controversial notions of repression and accurate memory recovery remain strongly endorsed. In historical cases, these notions may lead to wrongful convictions. The current study surveyed the U.K. public, lawyers, and mental health professionals\' beliefs about repression, dissociative amnesia and false memories. Study findings give unique data on judges\' and barristers\' beliefs. Overall, the study findings reinforce international scientists\' concerns of a science - knowledge-gap. Repression was strongly endorsed by lay, legal and clinical participants (> 78%) as was dissociative amnesia (> 87%). Moreover, suboptimal professional legal education and juror guidance may increase misunderstanding. Correcting beliefs about memory function, and extending the contribution of memory science in the courtroom remains an important quest for cognitive scientists.

Medical-legal partnership (MLP) integrates the unique expertise of lawyers into collaborative clinical environments. MLP teams meet the needs of individual patients while also detecting structural problems at the root of health inequities and advancing solutions at the institutional, community, and system levels. Yet MLPs today operate in limited settings and survive on scant budgets. Expanding their impact requires secure funding. Financing MLPs as health care can do the following: (1) help address inequity at the point of care; (2) enable expert diagnosis and treatment of nonmedical drivers of health; (3) enhance team-based practice in health care organizations; (4) offer another way for clinicians to participate in advocacy; and (5) bolster a broader movement to increase access to justice.

This case commentary considers unique features of medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) in the Veterans Health Administration that may potentially mediate and minimize ethical tensions that may arise in MLP collaborations involving diagnosing and documenting disability.

Undocumented people in the United States face innumerable legal and structural barriers to health and health care services, including for kidney failure. Their experiences vary across states and regions due to wide variation in insurance coverage and unreliable access to health-promoting resources, including medical-legal partnerships. This commentary on a case canvasses key policy about structural and legal determinants of health for undocumented persons.

Health justice as a movement incorporates research about how to more effectively leverage law, policy, and institutions to dismantle inequitable power distributions and accompanying patterns of marginalization that are root causes of health inequity. Legal advocacy is key to health justice because it addresses patients\' health-harming legal needs in housing, public benefits, employment, education, immigration, domestic violence, and other areas of law. In medical-legal partnerships, lawyers and clinicians are uniquely positioned to jointly identify and remove legal barriers to patients\' health, advocate for structural reform, and build community power.

BACKGROUND: Child welfare agencies around the world have experimented with algorithmic predictive modeling as a method to assist in decision making regarding foster child risk, removal and placement.
OBJECTIVE: Thus far, all of the predictive risk models have been confined to the employees of the various child welfare agencies at the early removal stages and none have been used by attorneys in legal arguments or by judges in making child welfare legal decisions. This study will show the effects of a predictive model on legal decision making within a child welfare context.
METHODS: Lawyers, judges and law students with experience in child welfare or juvenile law were recruited to take an online randomized vignette survey.
METHODS: The survey consisted of two vignettes describing complex foster child removal and placement legal decisions where participants were exposed to one of three randomized predictive risk model scores. They were then asked follow up questions regarding their decisions to see if the risk models changed their answers.
RESULTS: Using structural equation modeling, high predictive model risk scores showed consistent ability to change legal decisions about removal and placement across both vignettes. Medium and low scores, though less consistent, also significantly influenced legal decision making.
CONCLUSIONS: Child welfare legal decision making can be affected by the use of a predictive risk model, which has implications for the development and use of these models as well as legal education for attorneys and judges in the field.

In recent years, the Minnesota Attorney General\'s Office and the Minnesota Department of Health have cultivated a productive partnership to strengthen the state\'s multidisciplinary response to overlapping health equity and social justice issues. This article describes shared efforts in three areas: post-conviction justice, drug overdose, and human trafficking/exploitation.

BACKGROUND: Existing literature on rapport building in forensic interviews with children has primarily focused on police or social workers (Collins et al., 2002); overlooking the lawyer-child relationship.
OBJECTIVE: The present study was a novel exploration of the rapport building process between lawyers and child witnesses during the interview stage of a criminal proceeding.
METHODS: A total of 67 Canadian lawyers (Mage = 41.69, SD = 11.19; 51 % female-identifying) with experience questioning child witnesses (i.e., under 18 years old) were surveyed on their rapport building with child witnesses.
METHODS: A self-report survey was used to assess how lawyers conceptualize and engage in rapport building with child witnesses.
RESULTS: Lawyers were found to perceive rapport building as an important element when working with child witnesses; however, the lawyers\' self-reported rapport building techniques overlooked several important elements of rapport building identified in forensic interviewing literature. Overall, the role of the lawyer (i.e., prosecution or defence), but rarely gender, influenced their self-reported rapport building methods. Prosecution lawyers tended to report behaviors that were more aligned with creating an interpersonal connection during the rapport building phase with the child, such as creating an environment where the child feels safe and comfortable.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide insight into how lawyers conceptualize and engage in rapport building with child witnesses. Overall, the lawyers perceived rapport building as an important element with child witnesses, but only some of the techniques mentioned are considered best practices to build rapport with children.

The term \'vicarious trauma\' refers to a range of cumulative and harmful effects from exposure to the trauma of others and is now recognised as a category of causation in the diagnostic criteria of post-traumatic stress disorder. Legal practitioners may be exposed to the risk of harm from vicarious trauma in a number of occupational contexts. This article reviews recent case authority, including a 2023 prosecution of Court Services Victoria for failing to provide a safe workplace in the Coroners Court of Victoria and the High Court decision in Kozarov v Victoria (2022) and the Victoria Court of Appeal decision in Bersee v Victoria (2022). It considers measures that should be taken to provide a workplace for both legal practitioners and judicial officers that is as safe and without risks to health as is reasonably practicable.

There is a spotlight on mental health, with government initiatives in Australia highlighting the importance of, and need for, greater focus on psychological wellbeing and on addressing psychosocial hazards at work. The growing body of evidence in Australia and internationally suggests that the mental health and wellbeing of lawyers is adversely affected by their work. This cross-disciplinary evidence highlights the need for mental health concerns to be addressed systemically to prevent psychosocial injury and for tailored, proactive psychological support services in the legal environment. In this article we present evidence derived from qualitative interviews with Victorian personal injury lawyers, which form part of a broader study of lawyers and mediators engaged in emotion-laden work. This study aimed to ascertain to what extent the legal system considers the emotional wellbeing and mental health needs of personal injury disputants, lawyers and mediators, identify ways to reduce stigma associated with help seeking and inform proactive prevention initiatives and tailored support services. Findings from this build on past research and continue to highlight themes around stigma, vicarious trauma and collegial support and call attention to the psychological impact of legal practice on Australian lawyers. From this, preventative measures can be developed and implemented to avoid psychosocial injury and provide much-needed specialised support services.