Professional Skills Course

This week I have been on a training course that I have to complete before I can qualify as a solicitor. Mon-Wed I had training on advocacy. I had to prepare an interim application for an injunction in about an hour on Monday and then present it in front of the group and the tutor. The tutor was acting like a real judge would and interrupting to ask questions. It was pretty intense.

Then on Tuesday, we had to practice examinations-in-chief and cross-examinations. If you are doing "eics" you are not allowed to use leading questions (because it is your witness and it would look like you are the one giving the evidence as opposed to them). Let me tell you it is very difficult to only use open questions! And we were divided into two teams (prosecution and defence) and the other side were very quick to yell "Objection!" if you asked a leading question of your witness. It was pretty fun though.

Then Wed, we had to put it all together and we had a mock civil trial. My team was for the defence (the whole thing was about a case in nuisance against my client who was a farmer. His new neighbour was complaining about him using tractors and spreading muck on his fields.... really - the nerve.... on a farm!) So we were trying to prove that he was not causing a nuisance and that the claimant was just being over-sensitive and unreasonable (she did live in the country after all). Again, I had a major cross-examination of the claimant that lasted for like 30 minutes, which was actually quite fun because in CE you can ask as many leading questions as you want to try to make the witness look silly or to discredit their evidence. In the end, our team lost because it turned out our client was being a bit malicious and trying to annoy the claimant. But the claimant didn't get everything she was asking for (so I guess we won that bit).

Anyway, it was so much fun having a mock trial, even though I probably will never actually question a witness in court in real life.

At the end of this month, I have a real hearing at the Court of Appeal on a case that I have been working on since April. We first had a hearing in June at the High Court, and our client lost (starting to see a pattern). But they have now won the right to appeal and the appeal judge said it was a matter of importance because there is no law decided on this point yet. So the hearing has been expedited and is being heard by the Master of the Rolls (one of the most importance judges in the country). Very exciting stuff!