Ashurst Trial Advocacy Seminar Advanced skills Aoning Li – Solicitor Carmen Grobbelaar – Competitions VP cvp@msls.asn.au Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Outline of seminar Throughout, we will be workshopping the sample question: State of Western Australia v Moore As an advanced seminar, there is some assumed knowledge Focus of the majority of the seminar will be working through the preparation and presentation of the question as if you were competing with it Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Assumed knowledge Competition basics and procedure Trial advocacy basics Court etiquette Objection basics As well as a read-through of WA v Moore Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Preparing WA v Moore Read through How do you approach preparation? Read through x2 x3 Case theory Closing Opening Cross Chief Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Case theory Two types of case theory Broad case theory Can you explain the case in 2 or 3 lines? Detailed case theory Can you explain every single bit of the evidence and how to relates to your case? Literally every single bit of evidence Preparing the above is why the question needs to be repeatedly read through Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Closing statement Prepare the closing first – few exceptions to this Closing should be nothing like an opening Go straight into the factual discussions – no point repeating anything that was said in the opening Explain why Talk about the evidence generally – and what inferences the court should draw from the evidence Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Opening statement Easier to prepare once you know what the closing statement looks like Your opening should answer the question “what is this trial about?” without saying anything that the other side would disagree with It is important that nothing said is controversial in terms of what might be a disputed issue Set out the law and anything else so that the closing statement is “clean” in terms of discussing the issues Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Cross examination Cross examination needs to be consistent with the case theory This seems obvious but seems to be rarely done effectively Important to both criticise the evidence that hurts your case, but also to highlight the evidence that supports your case Again, the latter is rarely done as part of a complete cross examination presentation Remember Browne v Dunn if applicable as defence counsel Advanced skills – “closing the pen” on a line of questioning Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Examination in chief I generally advocate learning to do this “on the fly” rather than scripted preparation What is important is to be following the witness statement as the evidence is being given – which makes it hard to triple-task by listening, following the script AND following the statement at the same time. Advanced skill – pacing the questions so that the important bits of evidence are highlighted with a slower pace Time constraints means that this is the part that should be prepared last if at all. Trial advocacy seminar

Trial advocacy seminar Questions? Questions, queries Trial advocacy seminar

Contacts Carmen Grobbelaar Competitions Vice President cvp@msls.asn.au Week 1 - Introduction to Social and Welfare Law