InBrief

The New South Wales Bar Association is pleased to confirm that 32 members of the NSW Bar will participate this weekend in an Advocacy Skills workshop designed for barristers of 3-5 years seniority. The workshop is a joint initiative of the Bar Association and the Australian Advocacy Institute (AAI). The participants will practise trial techniques and strategies with the assistance of instructors led by the The Hon Justice Ann Ainslie-Wallace, Craig Smith SC, Carolyn Davenport SC, His Honour Judge Peter Berman SC and Ian Robertson SC of the South Australian Bar.

This workshop follows on from the Vulnerable Witness Advocacy Training Program held on 12 October 2019 where 25 barristers participated in a workshop designed to foster a greater understanding of the fundamental principles behind the approach to, and questioning of, vulnerable witnesses. The NSW Bar is the first independent state Bar to run that program. A separate article about that workshop will appear in an upcoming edition of Bar News. The participants in both workshops are given various advocacy tasks to perform and then receive immediate feedback from experienced instructors with constructive and practical suggestions on ways to improve their advocacy. The teaching method at the workshops is the ‘performance and review’ method. In short, the participant performs an advocacy role, is reviewed usually as to a single technique from that performance and the instructor then demonstrates that technique. Those sessions are complemented by general sessions involving all participants around key advocacy topics including case theory and communication.

We wish the participants well this weekend and thank those that participated so successfully in the Vulnerable Witness Advocacy Workshop. It is anticipated that these advocacy initiatives will be continued in 2020 and beyond with further skills workshops being available to members of the NSW Bar.

Click here to register your interest in attending our next workshop.