Chapter 1 This Book

This book, now in its paperback third edition, has got longer.

It will now take you maybe four hours to read. It used to take two.

Like I said in the earlier editions, I hope you may never forget what you read here - which from the book’s growing worldwide following seems likely.

I hope you will come back to it time and again.

Keep the book for reference.

It has been published as a paperback so you can carry it about.

It is full of good ideas which in the early years of your practice you can dip into while thinking of what to do in a case.

With reading it, your advocacy will probably improve immediately.

I used to say ‘it’s almost guaranteed’, but am confident enough nowadays from feedback to say, actually, it’s pretty much a dead cert.

This is not a reasoned academic text. It is a polemic. It is about being good in court - no messing, no guff, no clever arguments, no tedious endless proofs and justifications. It tells it as it is.

It is about how to do the job really well in your early years.

So it applies to all advocates of up to five years’ experience.

It is designed to be read easily by anyone interested in becoming effective in court - effective, important word, not ‘brilliant’ - whether presently at school, in university, at law school, or in the early stages of doing the job at the Bar or as a solicitor.

It is written with crime in mind. But many of the rules apply to the courtroom in civil practice too.

The book will make sense wherever the justice system is adversarial.

This means wherever there is a Common Law tradition, found through the Commonwealth and in the US. However, with the emergence of international criminal trials, in the last five years these advocacy techniques are permeating into non-adversarial legal cultures. So a lot of what is in this book is now being taught - and sometimes I’ve taught it - in Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Poland, Russia, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Dubai, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, China, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, and of course the US.

The rules of advocacy are travelling widely.

I’ve written this work in pretty much my style of speech from when I teach advocacy students.

But at least, you’ll probably remember what’s been said.

And where I refer to an advocate or judge, or anyone really, I will use the expression ‘he’ in one chapter, and then ‘she’ in the next, alternating, in an effort to be gender neutral.

You won't agree with everything you read.

Good.

At least you are thinking.

Thinking about advocacy.

About what works and what does not.

And why.

The book is called The Devil's Advocate because it may make you see advocacy from a new perspective.

Your assumptions will be challenged.

Each page will contain one or two thoughts, usually not more. You may have noticed this already.

Some pages will therefore be short.

Like this one.

Try not to fly through the book.

Instead, think about each page as you read it. Lodge each thought in your mind.

Don't skim. Think.

As for myself, I don't pretend I can do advocacy right every time in court, but I think I've come across what works.

And I know I will

always

always

always be learning.

It is part of why I love teaching - I learn a new idea every time I teach a class.

So, this book is everything I have learned - up to now - I hope it helps.