The course will seek to instruct Caribbean advocates and law students on the fundamentals of how to be effective advocates in court. The course will cover topics including how to treat witnesses, how to structure questions, how to deliver a closing speech and professional ethics.
On successful completion of the course, participants will be able to:
This course is suitable for lawyers, law students and individuals whose work entails advocacy of various kinds.
1. Participants' participation will be assessed through their attendance and active participation in at least 75% of the sessions. That is, a minimum of 12 hours. A record will be kept by the facilitators of participants' attendance and participation.
2. Each participant will be allocated a role by the facilitator(s) in advance of the training.
3. In order to obtain any benefit from this training, it is important for participants to have prepared in advance of the course. Participants should allow at least one day, possibly longer, to assimilate the papers fully and to prepare for the exercises.
4. Participants will be invited to submit a written skeleton argument in advance of the course. This should summarise the arguments which will be put forward in the closing speech exercise in support of your case. It should be no longer than 5 pages of A4 in Arial point 12, with double spacing.
5. The length of the statements, (which mirrors those taken in real trials), means that the advocate may not be able to do a full examination or cross-examination. The group trainers will tell the advocate the part on which he/she should concentrate.
6. The time allocated for each performance will be approximately 9 minutes.
7. PLEASE NOTE: although participants will be given both claimant and defence papers, when conducting a direct examination of claimant witnesses, they should not try and anticipate in their questions, lines of defence which in real life would not be apparent
The following topics will be addressed:
Professional Ethics
Practical Seminar on Case analysis
Attention will be focussed upon identifying the key issues in the case, the evidence available, the strengths and weaknesses of the case, the way in which one might minimise the weaknesses in one’s case.
Practical Seminar on Witness Handling Part 2
Attention will be focused upon challenging the evidence of the other party’s witnesses in accordance with the relevant procedural rules.
Practical Seminar on Narrative Advocacy: Closing submissions.
This course is suitable for lawyers, law students and individuals whose work entails advocacy of various kinds.
The course will employ a Hybrid Flexible approach, supported by PowerPoint, and it will be delivered using interactive discussions, role playing and case analysis.
In addition, the papers for a mock case will be circulated in advance of the course. Participants will be allocated a role (plaintiff or defendant). They will be expected to have read the papers before the first session and given thought to the issues in the case and how they would present their case.
The Hon. Mr. Justice Iain Morley QC will facilitate sessions 1 – 4.
Stephen Murch will facilitate sessions 5 – 8.
Mr. Justice Morley has practised at the Bar from London, originally in all aspects of criminal law (mostly murder, rape, drugs, and financial crimes), prosecuting and defending, and from 2005 became a well-known figure on the international circuit, practising in genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and international terrorism.
Having read law at Oxford 1984-87, and following a Pegasus Scholarship to the Bar of New Zealand in 1993, thereafter in London an Inns of Court Bencher at the Inner Temple, he has worked and taught in at least 40 jurisdictions, on advocacy skills, criminal law procedures, financial crime, and on international criminal law.
He is an established advocacy teacher, both nationally and internationally, and his book The Devil’s Advocate is currently a worldwide bestselling book on advocacy skills.
He took Silk in 2009 and in 2016 was appointed a High Court Judge to the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court to the criminal division in Antigua & Barbuda, and to all matters in Montserrat. He is Co-Chair of the ECSC Sentencing Advisory Committee, with Thom JA, and now on Antigua is the Senior Criminal Judge specifically dedicated judge to develop the ‘model court’, for sexual offences, funded by the Canadian NGO Jurist, from September 2018, following his membership of CCJ Sexual Offences Advisory Committee where he was a primary editor of the ‘model guidelines’ on sexual offence investigation and trials. He is also usually active each term in teaching ethics and advocacy skills to members of the Bar in Antigua and Montserrat.
Stephen Murch was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1991 by Lincoln’s Inn. He was elected a Bencher of the Inn in 2016. After just over 25 years in practice at the independent bar, predominantly in the fields of property law and landlord and tenant, he was appointed as District Judge of the County Court in 2017. In 2018, he was appointed as Recorder of the County Court. Since 2020, he has been a specialist judge in the Business and Property Court in England and Wales.
imorley@eccourts.org
sjmurch@btopenworld.com
