ADVOCACY AT THE INN
Advocacy at the Inn The Middle Temple Pupils’ Course, due to last for two weeks, began a week before the government announced the lockdown. Prior to this, week one of the course continued in person and some pupils chose to join the course from home via Skype. For the evening advocacy sessions, the trainers were at the Inn with some pupils whilst other pupils attended remotely. We took it in turns to perform the advocacy exercise. If we were appearing remotely, it was important that we muted ourselves on Skype to prevent any unintended interruptions! The advocacy trainer then gave us demonstrations on how we could improve. We had another opportunity to perform whilst trying to implement the constructive criticism we had received. The opportunity to appear remotely proved very useful as many hearings are now being conducted in this way. It was certainly an advocacy course we will not forget! Thank you to all those involved who ensured the course ran so smoothly.
Kitty Kirton Pupil Barrister at 2 Harcourt Buildings
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On Thursday 19 March 2020, along with other pupil barristers in my cohort for the Pupils’ Course, I was scheduled to participate in a court-based advocacy training day. However, the week commencing Monday 16 March 2020 was the trigger week for the UK entering lockdown. People were encouraged to work from home, the English and Welsh courts were operating at a significantly reduced capacity if they were open and London was eerily quiet. Thus, my experience of the pupils advocacy course was surreal. In fact, given the context, none of my cohort were certain that our court day would go ahead. However, thanks to the work and organisation of the staff at Middle Temple, with a particular shout out to Jessica Masi, and the cooperation of the judiciary, my cohort managed to do our civil advocacy session concerning an application for an interim injunction with Master Colin Birss via Skype for Business. I will freely admit I never expected to do my first advocacy session in front of a judge via a video-link, or have my laptop decide to crash when my opponent was doing his submissions on costs (no reflection on him or the subject matter). I was honestly very
2020 Middle Templar
happy to have the opportunity to get this advocacy practice and get my first experience of what may be the future at the Bar.
Megan Cochrane
Pupil Barrister at Whitestone Chambers Like most other practitioners, Covid-19 wiped my diary clean. I had downloaded a full suite of video conferencing facilities (CVP for court, Skype for talking to family and Zoom for our Chambers Friday night quiz) and I had become well immersed in the virtual world. So, given my newfound free time, when the opportunity arose to complete the Advocacy and the Vulnerable training online, I thought I would give it a go. How ironic that the very method we quite often use to speak to these witnesses (video link) was the one by which I would learn. The first part of the session, led by Master Bernard Richmond, was very relaxed. After all, who better to be taught by than the very man who led to the introduction of these principles. Using everyday topics of conversation, he demonstrated to
