Chapter 27 The Overall Advocate

And so we reach the end of this polemic. I don’t intend to write a long, flourishing peroration. The last chapter will be a simple single page. The page will define the overall advocate, the person you should be, or becoming, after carefully considering the ideas here.

The overall advocate has judgement.

And

poise,

eye contact,

common sense,

good relations with the opposition, good questioning technique, and a great closing speech, which has been written long before the trial begins, and always tries to think like the tribunal, not so much the client.

At the forefront of the good mind of an able advocate are the ‘threes': 3t's, 3i's,

3 best points,

3 beacons of behaviour.

And he is a credit to the profession if he is polite and he makes the tribunal really, really, really think about his case.

Above all, in everything she does in court, whether it is

addressing the judge, questioning a witness addressing a jury,

she seeks that rare quality of irresistibility,

which makes her look almost invisible,

as if the case solved itself.

He knows he must get to the point in legal writing. She knows how to be led as a junior. Neither is worried by experts, and each is sensitive to vulnerable witnesses. Their document management is sound. Both have a Bar ethos.

Neither is a gladiator, and each remains true to who they are and do not try to be someone they are not.

This sort of advocate will very often win.

Will this be you?