[speaker001:] [talk in background]
[speaker002:] Right, good morning, has everybody got two handouts, one called can you all hear me okay? Oh, it's the first time I've used one of these so... you should have two handouts, one called Advocacy Guide, one called Advocacy Criteria Guide. Has everybody got t those two handouts?
[speaker001:] [talk in background]
[speaker002:] Okay, a couple of before we start. If you haven't picked up these two handbooks that are on the table outside, can you do so some time today, okay? So by the end of today make sure you've got those. Also, just a reminder, next week you won't have a lecture at this time. Your lecture will be at eleven o'clock, that's for next Monday.
[speaker001:] [talk in background]
[speaker002:] Right, some of you know me, some of you don't. For those who don't, my name is. Erm, and I'm going to be talking to you this morning about advocacy. Now, you may not realize it but you've been in civil litigation and criminal litigation, you've been doing advocacy all term. Because what is advocacy? Presentation, collection of information, preparation of information. It's not just standing in court. Advocacy is the skill of good presentation and information, and that starts on the day that you first interview a client. It goes on when you're actually preparing statements, affidavits, pleadings, all those things which will eventually be used in court. It's not just the end result of standing up in court and representing a client. But this part of the course that we're specifically calling advocacy will concentrate on that part of the skill of advocacy, of the actual standing up and presenting information. Why do you need to know advocacy skills? One of the reasons is because the Law Society says you've got to have advocacy skills, and you'll find in your manual the actual amount or degree of advocacy skills you will eventually have to learn. This is what you might call phase one within the L P C. Phases two and three you will have during your training contracts. Some of you might be thinking, well, I'm never going to advocate, I never intend to go anywhere near a court. Even if you don't, the skill of advocacy, the skill of thinking concisely, presenting clearly, is a useful skill even if you never actually use it in the courtroom. In meetings, in presentations of all kinds, the skill is useful. Those of you going into large practices may think well, I'll never advocate, counsel will do it, but times are changing. Large practices are more and more expecting their solicitors to do their own advocacy, and not instruct counsel. Some large practices are beginning to put themselves forward as specialist advocates for smaller firms who can't specialize in that way. So whichever sort of practice you're going into, you may at some point be required to advocate in some sort of court setting. As I mentioned, you've been getting some advocacy experience, although you might not have realized it, in litigation already. When it comes to the summer in your options that you take there, you will to a lesser or greater extent get some more advocacy experience during the summer. But we're concentrating this week and next week on the advocacy skill of standing up before a court.... What's advocacy about? Is it just the contents? Is it the presentation of information? Or are there lots of other things that you need to be aware of?... This is the impact that a speaker has when they stand up and speak to a group of people. Only seven percent of the words that they speak, of their impact, based on the words they speak, thirty eight percent is based on their voice and the way that they present that information. Fifty five percent are all the other messages that you're giving out, by the way you stand, the way you dress etcetera. So when you think about when you're preparing for your advocacy exercises, the actual content that you prepare, although important, is not going to have the maximum impact. The maximum impact is going to come from the way you stand, lots of other things, the way you speak... that's based on various studies that were done. They weren't on court settings so I would imagine in a court situation perhaps the impact of words is slightly higher, you might expect, but it's still going to be a low percentage in respect of the overall conta image that's put over. So when you are preparing, you need to think about the words you use. They need to be clear, they need to be simple words, they don't need to be complex ones, because you've got to put over what you're saying very clearly. To be effective you've got to structure the information that you give. You will be getting scenarios and you won't be expected to put all that information over in one block, you're expected to structure your information. You also need to develop a persuasive line of argument and we'll come back to those things later on. So let's consider for a moment... what are the attributes, the other attributes, that an advocate needs? I'm just going to put the video on for a moment... [video introducing jasper carrott] Thank you. I'm sorry, it stops before the jokes start. I'm afraid no matter how good your advocacy performance is, you're never going to get an ovation like that, and we won't expect you to do it in front of that size of audience either. So the reason I put Jasper Carrott up here is just to think for a moment, here's somebody who's obviously a really effective and great communicator. But could you send Jasper Carrott out to court?
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker002:] Okay, then you would all agree, you've got to put him through the old P C course. Why can't you
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker002:] why can't you send him down to court? What have you got to change about him?
[speaker001:] [too quiet to hear]
[speaker002:] His coat, yes. So the way he's, isn't it the way he's dressed for that is fine, but you can't send him down to court like that.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker002:] The er facial expressions are perhaps over the top for court?
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker002:] Sorry, the unedited version... Right, so what have you got, what have you got to change about him? What have we got to change about ourselves? We've got to think about the way we dress. Dress is not going to be compulsory
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker002:] Well, dear, I suppose you really would make an impact then wouldn't you? Erm... but we won't, well we're not going to be descriptive, we're not going to ask say that you must wear suits or you must whatever. But our experience is that this sort of ad this sort of presentation interviewing those sorts of things, they're very different forms of presentation. But this form of presentation, which needs to be quite formal, what other students have found is that if you dress formally actually it helps you to act formally, because this sort of presentation is going to be very different. Right, so what are we going to ch we're going to change the way he dresses, we're going to change the mannerisms, various things like that. One of the things you, you've got to do is get used to actually talking standing up and the first thing you do you find when you s talk standing up is you discover that you've got hands. I talk with my hands. Many people talking with their hands. And you've got feet, and you move around. And you've got hair that falls in your face and you sort of, and all those things you've got to learn to cope with because if you're worried about what you're doing with your hands, or your feet, or your hair, then you can't then concentrate on putting over your information effectively. So when you're practising bail application, and I'll talk about that in a moment, think about what you're going to do, how you're going to stand. Those of you who saw today will know that he calls this position the Adam and Eve position. And then there's the Prince Philip position. Or there's holding, anything, that keeps your hands under control. If you know you tend to talk with your hands, how're you gonna keep them under control? The other thing that tends to throw people the first time they every do ad advocacy is that you're going to talk to somebody who will not talk to you, who will not s possibly even smile at you, who won't give you the usual feedback that we're u that we're used to when we're talking to someone. So be prepared for that, be prepared that the person you're going to talk to is not gonna give you that usual to and fro feedback and don't be thrown by that. Preparing, try not to use scripts. When you're preparing what you're going to say, use notes, and I've given you some guidance in the handout on using notes. Why not use a script? Because if you're speaking from a script you're going to be speaking like this. You can't make eye contact if you're speaking to a piece of paper. You can't be persuasive if you're speaking to a piece of paper, if you're reading from a script. Also, what you generally find is that if somebody is reading as opposed to refreshing their memory from looking at a piece of paper and then letting it flow, if they're reading from it it's dull, it lacks sparkle. The words may be brilliant, the sentences may be perfectly constructed but it hasn't got that life in it that the more spontaneous talking will have, and it's less persuasive. Those of you who've done some advocacy before may have used lecterns. You will not be getting lecterns this time around. The reason we've elected not to give you lecterns is you'll never get lecterns in real life. If you go into a real court there aren't lecterns. So you've got to get used to advocating with just an ordinary table, and how do you do that? How do you cope with that? Again, if you're going to be using notes, you don't want to be talking down to a table, so think about whether you're s you're going to, in your practising, are you going to let your eyes flick down to your notes that're on the paper, on the table, or are you gonna pick them up? Are you going to just have them in front of you so you can flick your eyes up and down to remind yourself what you're next going to say? Don't hold them too far up. Remember in your content that you're representing a client. The court isn't really concerned about your views, it's concerned about your client and the argument you can formulate for the client that you're representing. Be realistic about your client's position. Don't try to paint a picture of your client being the perfect citizen if he's not the perfect citizen. The other thing to remember, you're trying to persuade the court to your views, or the view that you're putting forward for your client, you're not telling the court what they must think. You're putting over information on the basis that the only thing that a t an intelligent person think I'm saying to you now, what's going to be the effect of that on the listener? If somebody says you must think this, the only way of doing it is, that's not going to be persuasive. So you've got to think in terms of persuasion. Right, what are we going to expect you to do? The first exercise you're doing is a bail application. And the timetable for that will be going out on the, the noticeboard some time this afternoon. Now some of you will be doing your bail application on Wednesday and some on Friday. Because, and you'll be given the instructions for those in your small group sessions today. Because the, we can't put all of you into, that're doing advocacy into one small group session, you may find yourselves with a different tutor, or at a different time, to when you would normally have your small group session. So be careful to make sure you find your number on the timetable and know where you're going and who you're going to be with. Also, you're going to be doing it in fours, so four will you, four of you will arrive at the beginning of the session, and four of you will arrive half way through. And those of you who ar who arrive half way through will need to wait outside. All the times that you need to arrive at you will find on the timetable. The first session is designed to be one that gives y gets you accustomed to advocacy, to be non-threatening, and to be one where you can simply literally find your feet and get used to advocating in that way. You won't be given a great deal of feedback in that session, just enough to get you going. The majority of the feedback you're going to get to help you find your advocacy skills will be after the supervised litigation that you'll do next week. I think you were all given a timetable last Monday which showed where the various advocacy things are going to be. So this week you'll do a three minute application, you'll see the way in which th that's going to be done from the instructions in the small group session that you'll get today. Non-threatening, try and relax, just try and get used to standing on your feet. It will be videoed, to se you'll make two applications within that small group session and a second will be videoed but only for you to see so that you can take it away and try and learn from er seeing yourself on video. The second advocacy exercise is on that first er timetable called unsupervised mitigation. You'll be given a ro a pair of you will be given a room on your own, and a video camera, and asked to practise advocacy skills plea in mitigation. And the second ad the third advocacy will be the supervised mitigation when you'll do it with a tutor and then have separate individual feedback given to you. When you come to the small group session this week, you'll need to bring with you your video tape. Make sure it's at a point on the video tape where it can be recorded immediately because there won't be time to find the right point, and also make sure you bring with you a watch because you're going to need to be very tight on, on times, so try and remember to bring a watch with you. All the pieces of advocacy that we're going to ask you to do are short. Three or four minutes is all that we're going to ask you to do each time. One of the reasons for that is that one of the skills of the advocate is to learn to be concise and to get over the message very quickly, and that's one of the reasons for giving you a short period of time. The other thing that's available to you in making your preparation is a video of local practitioners. It will be available from tomorrow morning. You'll be able to borrow it from the office downstairs and view it in the library. On that video you'll find three local practitioners. They, on that video, are bill er bail applications, applications for plea in mitigation applications and three examples of how not to make an application before the court. All three are very experienced advocates before the courts but all three of them have deliberately done one application wrong, so you can see the typical things that advocates do do that should not be done. And I think, if you look at that video, it will actually perhaps encourage you because it sh yes, those are experienced advocates, I'm not expecting you to refine your skills to that level, but I think if you see the, the erm the level of which experienced advocates advocate at it will actually perhaps make you relax a little, if you see the stand realize that the standard we're expecting you to go to is not, not anywhere near quite as high as that. I'm going to show you an excerpt now from that video. The full video will be available tomorrow morning.
[speaker001:] [talk in background] [the following is from a video recording] Please, your worship, this is a most unfortunate case. My client's a young man of thirty six years of age. He appears before the court for the first time for what is essentially a domestic assault on his girlfriend. Perhaps I can give you some of the background to this particular matter. My client and his girlfriend have been together for some six year, they have three children aged six, five and four. They originally lived in the home counties but came up to this area two years ago. Er, my client has been in business at the u his own firm supplying computer software in a specialized market, that is stock control systems for clubs, pubs and restaurants. You can imagine this has meant him working very long hours, one of the other problems he has is he suffers from diabetes. Working long hours also means that er he also gets very tired and, as he now acknowledges, when he's tired he tends to be short-tempered. That then is the background to this particular incident. Because of his working hours he is not giving as much time as he ought perhaps to his family, although he's always tried to ensure that weekends are devoted to his children. When this incident occurred he'd been working on a project in Harlow in Essex setting up another system. This had entailed him working long hours. On the Friday before the incident occurred he had not got home until three o'clock in the morning. He'd then had to drive back down to Harlow again the following morning to sort out further problems with the system. Returning about tea time, he'd then gone out once more to deliver some computer disks for another project he was running in Heanor. He returned home about eight o'clock in the evening, feeling absolutely exhausted, and as he said, all he wanted to do was go to sleep. There had been problems in his relationship with his girlfriend and indeed he'd come to see my firm about six months ago because of the deterioration in that relationship and had general advice then about his legal position should there be a separation. He had not come back after he had been given general advice, and he had what he describes as an uneasy peace in the relationship with his girlfriend. She was insistent in case there should be a separation that he should make some form of, of proper financial arrangement for them, a legally binding agreement. When he returned home very tired on the Saturday evening she turned on him and began nagging him again about the possibility of a separation and that he should make proper commitment to her. Unfortunately, in the course of that discussion, he lost his temper with her, there was a struggle and she suffered some minor bruises and scratches. The police were called, my client was arrested and was detained at the police station from about midnight on the Saturday until eventually he appeared before the court about four o'clock on the Monday afternoon. He'd been in custody there for nearly thirty six hours altogether. He was then released on bail and, as is the custom, the police required conditions of his bail that he should not go back to his girlfriend's address to prevent any possibility of any further offending. He therefore has been living with friends, sleeping on their floors, for the last few weeks, because he's complied explicitly with the conditions of his bail. He's therefore not been able to contact his girlfriend, he's not been able to see his children, er, although he has missed them very much. He now says that he does love his girlfriend, he does want to make that relationship work, and he's very hopeful of making a reconciliation. Madam may feel that having spent so much time in custody for the first offence that he has already suffered sufficient punishment, he's been kept away from his girlfriend and children, and under those circumstances I would urge you Madam to take a lenient course of action, to make him the subject of a conditional discharge. Apart from anything else, that'll ensure the court that he is not tempted to be involved in any similar incident in the future with is girlfriend. And Madam, I'd also ask you to say that to to him to pay compensation for the minor injuries she's suf she's suffered and of course you have to consider that's a point in a case involving assault, would be to add insult to injury, and would not assist the parties in coming to terms with their relationship and hopefully attempting a reconciliation. [video ends]
[speaker002:] Right, so is a very experienced advocate. If you can get it as good as that your first time up you must be a natural. Cos if you notice, hardly any moving around, if you think about had a go and think about, the dress is different, the manner is different, the voice is different, very little facial expression even, certainly very little movement, but good eye contact. The whole of the way through that he was looking at the person he was trying to im not staring at them, but good eye contact, so if you're trying to influence somebody there's no point in looking somewhere else. You look at that person. Let's have a look at how deliberately did this one wrong.
[speaker001:] [talk in background] [LAUGHTER] [the following is from a video recording] Please your worships, I appear on behalf of Mr Smith this morning. He's a man of er of previous good character. He's er, he's er, twenty er no thirty six years of age, thirty six years of age Madam. He appears before the court for the first time, he's of previous good character and erm and er has never been in trouble with the courts before and er Madam I'm going to suggest to you that this incident was brought about not by any fault of his own, but, but by his girlfriend and her behaviour towards him. I ask you to deal him leniently in that because of that. Madam, my client's thirty six years of age and lives with his girlfriend. He has been working very long hours setting up in business here in er in this area er he gets home late at night and I'm afraid to say that over the last few months he's been nagged continuously by his girlfriend who wants him to try and sort out financial arrangements because the relationship between the two of them's not been very good. He comes home late night, one Saturday night, having been working long hours, not having enough sleep, she nags him and Madam he loses his temper with her and Madam, I am sure that you and I in our relationships [speech obliterated by laughter] same sort of stress in a different situation where, where we've been nagged by our partners and lost our temper and pushed them about, or whatever, and we'd be very surprised I think to find ourselves in, in my client's situation had that happened, because what, what happened here Madam was that erm the girlfriend suffered some minor injuries, nothing to worry about really [speech obliterated by laughter]. I think Madam yeah she complains Madam of er scratches to her arms and bruises to her upper arms where he allegedly grabbed hold of her erm and that really is it, nothing to worry about at all. [speech obliterated by laughter] sort this out sensibly, the police overreact, they arrest him at midnight in the clothes he stands up in, they take him down to the police station, he's held in the police station for about thirty six hours or so, something like that, er instead of being brought before the court straight away and released on bail straight away, they, they keep him in custody where he's never been before, er and Madam he's then released on bail but court imposes silly conditions on him, conditions that he shouldn't go back to his home address, he can't go and see his girlfriend, he can't go and see his children, er, and Madam it seems to be an abuse of the process really of the court to behave in this way. He's therefore been stuck, living on er friends' floors for the last few weeks, not being able to go back to his girlfriend and not being able to see his children, er and Madam that's had an effect on his, on his business as well. So Madam I'm asking you to say that these circumstances, this is the sort of case that should never have come before the court, it should've been sorted out between the parties themselves, with the aid of their solicitors, and that it's only the overreaction of the police in this particular circumstance that brings him before the court here. He's got no previous convictions. Madam, I'm gonna ask you to say in those circumstances that we should give him the maximum discharge. You appreciate that means he has no, effectively no record at all and that seems to me to balance up what's happened here against er against the fact that he's got no previous convictions Madam. I think to impose any other penalty upon him would merely be to exacerbate the situation. He's suffered enough. He's been in custody for two or three, three days, thirty six hours or something like that already, and not been able to see his family, and er got into all sorts of mess because of that Madam. Er er and it seems to me that the court shouldn't be clogged up with cases like this. So I'd ask you Madam to go along with what I'm suggesting and make him the subject of an absolute discharge so that he doesn't have any previous court er any, any convictions or anything like that on his record. And Madam I'd ask you not to make any award for compensation to his girlfriend cos that's just gonna add insult to injury really, isn't it? So Madam I'd ask you to go along with what I'm suggesting, that's an absolute discharge and er [video ends] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker002:] About the only thing he got right was what he called the magistrate, he called her a madam, because when you're appearing before a stipendiary magistrate, one magistrate on their own, it's sir or madam. Yeah, the hands, no structure, did you notice he hardly ever looked at the magistrate, although yeah his voice projection was still good because he's an experienced advocate, but he was talking to the table nearly the whole time. Now if you, if he, as I hope you will do, have a look at the full versions, you can have a look at the shorter excerpt in a moment. If you have a look at the four versions of the videos, I hope what you'll do is have in front of you er the advocacy criteria guide, which we'll speak a bit more about in a moment, and actually look and see well, how is it that these people meet, those things, they don't necessarily but how, how are they persuasive advocates? Okay, let's look at a slightly different style. Again another very experienced advocate. This first one is only an excerpt because I'm then going to contrast it with how not to do it... [the following is from a video recording]
[speaker001:] Sorry, I think it's worth noting some of the circumstances giving rise to Mrs Brown er committing the offences which bring her before the court today. So you're dealing with a fifty one year old lady, she's never been in trouble, has no previous convictions, a lady, Sir, who divorced in nineteen seventy six, she brought three children up single-handedly and so she has done all she can, er often at great personal sacrifice, to ensure the best financial stability and the best emotional support for her children. She's perhaps done what most working mothers do, she's put the children first. She had a good working record. Er, Sir, she was working in the care sector as a residential home manager. She held a position of trust and responsibility. That was until about two years ago when unfortunately the home where she worked was closed down and she was made redundant. It was at that stage, Sir, that Mrs Brown made a claim for benefit to support herself and her eleven year old son and so that claim for benefit was a perfectly legitimate one. Sir, in June nineteen ninety two Mrs Brown er successfully obtained temporary work working for the Nottingham Community Hospice as a nursing auxiliary and the work was initially intended to be for a period of about three months. It was on a temporary basis. She wasn't sure as to whether er it would work out. It was er at that stage in her life her two eldest children returned home, her daughter because she'd fallen pregnant and her son because his marriage had unfortunately broken down. [video ends]
[speaker002:] Very different style, and you've got to find your own style because it's got to be one that suits you. If you noticed copes with his hands by pushing them behind his back, copes with them by having her papers in her hand. But again, she's making good eye contact, both of them only let their eyes flick down to their notes to remind themselves of the next point they want to make. Now their notes. People's notes [speaking obliterated by noise] to how full they are. What I would advise you to do is not use whole sentences in your notes because then you'll be tempted to read from the notes. So notes that're in true note form. Write down enough that you feel confident that if your mind blanks you've got enough there to remind you what you want to say. But then use some method of highlighting key words or underlining or sub- heading that pe you can just flick your eyes to and remind you very quickly of what you're going to say. gave a brief history, brief outline of the case. She did then, did go on and develop her argument more. But let's contrast that with when did it deliberately wrong... [the following is from a video recording]
[speaker001:] Sir, very very serious charge and I'm sure that you'll be thinking about sending her er to prison today. I mean, she's told you about her three children but er I suppose she should've thought of that, shouldn't she, before she signed on? Still, her children are quite young and erm and I, I think she's sorry for what she's done. Erm, erm, I have got a note of their ages somewhere. Er, er, it doesn't matter about that but there are three young children. Er, it is an awful lot of money of course. How much is it, two thousand pounds, well she's offered to pay it back at two pounds a week and er it's gonna take a long time, isn't it, Sir, for her to pay it back? But er she does want to pay it back, she does want to pay it back, and er well she wants to pay it back, erm, if you could start it this time next year she'd be er she would be grateful for that. Er, she is sorry, she's sorry that she's committed er she committed the offence. Er, and I don't think she's been in trouble before. Mrs White, have you been in trouble before? No, the culprit has not been er in trouble before. Erm, yeah,sh I know you'll be thinking about sending her to prison today but if you could think of anything else that erm, I don't know, a suspended sentence or something like that, then obviously she'd, she'd be really grateful for that, wouldn't you, Mrs, yeah [laughter obliterated speech] erm, er, Mrs White is there anything else you want me to say? Er, well, I think that's it for Mrs White then. [video ends] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker002:] Okay, so when you come to look at these videos, okay, slightly exaggerated but if you go down to court, and you might like to go down to the hall or somewhere locally, you'll actually find that there are advocates who do what did deliberately wrong and what did deliberately wrong. Perhaps not quite as exaggerated but v very similar. And wh because one of the things that they were deliberately doing as if they were unprepared. Sorry if some of you are still a bit cold but I thought the heater had been turned on, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Erm, if you're prepared you haven't got to fumble with your notes, the ums and aahs are less, the facts flow, you call your client the right name, and you can concentrate on the presentation. The one that, when y if you look at those, look at, don't just concentrate on the ones which are right, concentrate on the ones that were wrong too and say, why are they wrong? Yeah, they're amusing and those sort of things and obviously they're deliberately wrong, but have a look and see why, what is it because they do contain errors that are commonly made day after day in courts. Right, if you could have a look for a moment at your criteria guide. Let's just look at what we're expected to do. This is what we'll use at every stage of the advocacy exercises. It'll be used for the bail, it'll be used for the mitigation, and it will be used for your assessment. Dirty word, assessment, but we'll come back to that in a minute. Right. A few typing errors, please ignore those. I haven I haven't developed a new word at number six, that is overall presents her argument in a confident and persuasive manner. Right, let's just think about these. Selects relevant facts. So you select from the information you're given the facts that are relevant to the application you're making that day, whether it be bail or whether it be a plea in mitigation. What's relevant to your application? What are you asking the court to do? What are you trying to persuade them to do? If it's bail, you're trying to get your client released, possibly with conditions. If it's plea in mitigation, you're tr remember your client has been convicted at that point. I've had many students who've done this in front of me who've started off by saying, my client is not a criminal. He's just been convicted. So, erm, remember what it is you're trying to achieve. With plea in mitigation, you're trying to minimize the sentence, within realistic boundaries. Argument is concise and to the point. One of the other things about those two that were wrong was that they rambled, they were all over the place, there was no conciseness, no clarity to them. Main points are effective. Again, those two that were wrong were all over the place and not an effective sequence. Maintains good eye contact. Both the ones where they did it right, they maintained good eye contact with the person they were trying to persuade. They didn't stare at them but had good eye contact. You're doing it wrong if you're not looking at the person that you're trying to persuade. Speaks clearly. You can do all this beautifully, but if you can't be heard it's a waste of time. It doesn't mean you've got to, should, doesn't mean you've got to have a loud voice, it just means you've got to speak, speak clearly and slowly enough to be clear. You know yourself whether you tend to go quickly or whatever. Practise these things. Actually in the next few days stand up at home, speak it, say it, record it if you want to. See what you sound like. But speak, when you start to speak, if you know that when you're nervous that you will ramble on, you'll go quickly, remember that, so that as you start remember to slow down. If you can't slow down, then deliberately pause so that the person who's listening to you has an opportunity to mentally catch up on what you're saying. So if your voice is quick, make sure you put in pauses, or find some other method of coping with it in that way. Overall is confident and persuasive. You can be as nervous as anything inside, if what you're saying comes over confidently and persuasively, that's what matters. So good preparation. All advocates. The one thing that really marks them out is good preparation, so that when they stand up in court they haven't got to think much about the content cos it's at their finger tips, they know it, they know Mrs Brown's age, they know how many children she's got, they haven't got to think about it. They just concentrate on presenting that information. Right, let's summarize where we've got to, and what you're going to be doing. When you're preparing, prepare well. The relevant law you will need to know, and the relevant law you will find in the manual you've got, you won't need to look anywhere other than the manuals, it's all going to be in there. So you won't need to be searching through anywhere else. Remember, when you're given your fact scenarios, to take out of those scenarios the information that you think is relevant and structure it. If you simply regurgitate word for word what's in the fact scenario, that's not going to be persuasive. You need to structure it in a way that fits in with the argument that you're go the line of argument you're going to be putting before the magistrate. And develop a persuasive argument. Practise out loud. Practise it standing up. Practise in front of a mirror. But if you practise it sitting down, your voice'll be very different, the speed of your voice will be different, and if you don't practise it out loud you won't be able to get any idea of whether it's going to take three minutes or not. The only way to really gauge how long a pr presentation will take when you say it out loud, is to practise it out loud. Because you will be kept strictly to time. You've got three minutes, a few seconds over, and then you'll be asked to stop. It can be shorter than three minutes. Don't worry if it's shorter. Most people, when they practise out loud, speak more slowly. They're in a relaxed situation in their own home. Stand them up in front of somebody, tutor, and they'll speak more quickly. If you're three minutes at home, then you're fine, most likely that will mean you're up slightly under the three minutes when you do it before your tutor. But that's the way to get your guide, that's the way to practise. And concentrate on those points that are in the advocacy criteria guide in making your preparations. You'll all be given the instructions for the small group sessions for bail today. If you've got any questions, you can ask your tutor then, or you can come and see me. Are there any questions at this stage? Any points that you, you immediately know you want to ask? No. Right. Thank you all very much.