INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new method of legal training for law students. The objective is to demonstrate how the techniques of the actor, director and theatrical instructor, may be applied to the training of future advocates. It will look at ways the law is taught today and then assess if the principles of the actor may help close any ‘gaps’ which exist in legal training.
To do this, the paper will first establish what advocacy means. It will then point out any similarities between the actor and the advocate, and more importantly, any differences. The focus will then turn to some of the techniques used today in legal training such as role playing, simulation and finally the most widely used and historical method of legal training, the moot. It will then apply some acting techniques such as the exercises in relaxation, essential before any performance. This paper will pay particular attention to the use of improvisation to develop specific aspects of the performance such as eye contact, speech and the actor’s attitude to the audience, and finally how the actor should analyse a scene of a play to its very basic level of understanding in order to gain the most out of the performance. The paper will conclude with an evaluation of the applicability of these theatrical techniques and their benefit, if any, to; not only the mooters and legal students in general, but to the practicing advocates these students will become.
PART ONE- THE ADVOCATE AND THE ACTOR
What is an advocate?
By one definition, advocacy is not a science but an art. In fact it is the art of presenting, and presenting before an audience. In law that is the court, and the court may include a jury.
“Advocacy The art of conducting or presenting before a court. An advocate’s work comprises argument or making speeches (called addressing), questioning witnesses, and preparation and planing these tasks.”1
Even at first glance, the role of the advocate bears similarity with theatre. The theatre, too, is the art of presenting, and the person presenting is an actor in that theatre. Like an actor, an advocate makes argument and speeches before an audience. This should be the first hint that there may be some suggestion of a deeper similarity between the two disciplines. It then may follow that some of the techniques used in the training of the art of the theatre may also be used in the training of the art of the advocate. Both deal with presentation and conduct before an audience. It is the aspect of presentation that this paper will focus on, as above all else “the techniques of the theatre are the techniques of communication.” 2
Similarities
This section will consider the actual processes involved in both the actor and the advocate.
When a playwright puts words onto a paper it creates a story of some ‘happening’. The actor takes those written words, lifts them from the page, and puts them into physical action before a gathering of people (the interested third party). It is the job of the actor to then perform these ‘invented’ actions so well that the interested third party will believe they are not invention but real life events, happening at that moment on the stage. In the course of the play, there may be other actors that work to defeat the main actor in some purpose the actor has undertaken, within the story line of the written words.3 The conclusion of the play will be the actor’s victory or defeat. “[M]any Greek plays are little more then staged debates”.4
While this is a simplification of what really happens it does serve to illustrate the objectives of the performance, namely, (1) to entertain and to hold the attention of the audience; and (2) to inform what is happening to the actors on stage within the confines of the play.5
When a client comes to the advocate they tell a story, which involves a request or question on some point of law. The advocate then presents that story, as a plea for some judicial action before an interested third party, either a judge or a judge and a jury. During the course of the presentation, as in the theatre, there is an opposing side to the story. Following this analogy to its logical conclusion, the conclusion of the court room “play” will be the victory or defeat of the advocate as to whether he is granted the requested action or not.
“The condition of our survival [victory] in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn (sp) to live in a social world.” (Learned Hand J )6
Like the actor, the advocate has informed the audience of some otherwise unknown information. Whether this has “entertained” the judge or jury is not a matter for this paper. “Entertained” here refers to the capturing and holding of the court’s attention.
Differences
It is most important, if not essential, to distinguish the differences between the actor and the advocate.
At no time does the actor ever take part in a real life event. Theatre is never real. It is not real life, but rather a representation of events, in a real life manner, under controlled conditions for the actor and the audience. People come to the theatre to vicariously experience something that will most likely never happen to them.7 Or, alternately, it is happening to them now in their real lives, but they do not realise it until someone on the stage points it out to them.9 The job of the theatre is to advise and inform. If what the audience is witnessing does not have some suggestion of either of these two elements, then it may be said, that what they are watching is not theatre.
At all times the advocate must never forget that what they are dealing with is real life, importantly, someone else’s real life. What the advocate does in the court cannot be asked to leave the stage as an actor can in theatre, because the audience didn’t like the way the advocate was performing his task. It is essential that the advocate never forgets that someone else’s life may depend on them doing their job well. How best to train law students, and the adequacy of the training, to fit the purpose of the future advocate, has been a serious question for legal educators. This is why the aim of this paper is to arm the student lawyers with techniques that will help them present to the court.
PART TWO- LEGAL EDUCATION
As far back as 1993, writers of legal educational texts were bemoaning the need for skills training at a university level, “So far, training institutions have paid little attention to providing any formal, structured training in advocacy skills for solicitors.”10
In 1994, Fiona Martin pointed out,
“There is still a school of thought that considers training in skills a ‘trade’ school task or a matter for other stages of the educational process and not a proper concern of universities”.11
Ms Martin went on to point out the Pearce Report’s (1987) 12 recognition and endorsement of students studying legal skills at an undergraduate level. She goes on to add Noel Jackling’s (1986:4) list of benefits for an “integration of academic and practical training” as:
- Theoretical learning is enhanced and reinforced.
- Theory is put in context, in real life perspective; students are able to make connections between the academic and the practical.
- Integration helps avoid the belief that law in text books and law in practice are the same thing.
- Integration facilitates the perception of problems as being multifaceted and not often presenting themselves within subject divisions.
- Integration minimises the likelihood that law is regarded as having merely intellectual consequences rather than practical ones.
- The student is less likely to formulate the view that most law is adversarial.
- Non-academic skills are best learned across time, rather than deferred in the belief that they can be learned in six months in a practical training course.
- Development in communication skills will be facilitated.13
She also adds that “academic education and training [should be placed in] a real-life perspective.”14
It was in an attempt to incorporate these benefits that Monash University began “dabbling” in “role playing” as a method of instruction of skill training back in the early 1990′ s .
Role playing is a method of using students to play clients and practitioners in a variety of hypothetical scenarios. Monash based their instigation of role playing on D.A. Kolb’s two matrixes of his learning theory. These matrixes in turn were based on the “cognitive” perspective of learning and involved:
- “Concrete experience- requiring involvement without bias, a practical ‘hands on approach’;
- Reflective observation-requiring listening, watching and observation from an open-minded perspective;
- Abstract conceptualisation-requiring an analytical approach, integrating observating in theories and thus developing general principles.
- Active experimentation-requiring the testing of the theories, problem solving and decision making.”15
Adult learning may be described as:
“‘psychological contract of reciprocity’ (James 1987: 282), which requires that adult learners ‘give’ of their present knowledge. This helps them integrate and apply new perspectives. They also ‘get’ from other learners and thus incorporate new ideas.”16
By the year 2000,
“The brief of several of the new law schools, including Griffith, my own, was to move legal education beyond the reductive rote learning which typified many law schools and to incorporate critical and contextual perspectives and a student-centred approach to legal education. A second, even more radical change was… skills teaching became increasingly important.
… the large groups were not lectures but encompassed a variety of pedagogical approaches, including role plays, buzz groups and report backs.”17
The one skill that all legal educators agreed upon was the need to develop the skills of communication.
PART THREE- TECHNIQUES OF COMMUNICATION
Role Play
By 1999 such learning methods as role playing were more widely used. Samantha Hardy used it in her ‘The Market Day Project”. This was:
“a series of activities aimed at giving students a number of different perspectives on legal disputes involving consumers, and at engaging them in the complexities of a life-like situation. In the early activities the students play the roles of consumers and retailers and, in effect, create their own disputes. In later activities, the students act as the lawyers for the consumers and retailers, isolating the legally relevant facts from the earlier role-plays, negotiation with the other disputants, and providing legal advice.”18
Ms Hardy saw this as “encouraging dramatic skills such as role-playing the pressured salesperson during the purchase transaction”,19 which is a perfect example of the teaching methods of the theatre being applicable to the training of advocates. But is there more that Ms Hardy could have incorporated into her series?
The Market Day Project
The aim of the project was to “create a contextual simulation” which put the students in an artificial “real life” situation or a market place where the students could be the people in the market place and experience “first hand” the experiences of consumer/retailer in a “hands-on” way.
From a legal perspective the aim of the series was to develop students functioning and declarative knowledge of consumer protection laws. With the aid of the dramatic use of role playing, the students went on to develop a procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge of the laws as well.20
From an educational perspective,
“The exercise departed from the traditional assignment model in that it required the students to consider a consumer protection problem from the beginning of the transaction giving rise to the legal issues, rather than dealing with the issues in hindsight, well after the transaction had taken place.21
The use of the groups was ‘designed to mimic the approaches to problem-solving found in the workplace and students [were] expected to learn approaches to resolving conflict, planning and managing time.”22
From a theatrical technique benefit perspective, the students had to be creative in what they had to say and do. They did not have a set course of action or dialogue, but rather the adventure of improvisation.
“Half the students role-played consumers wanting to purchase a product. In doing so they needed to consider what the consumer might want in a product… They also had to think about the types of questions that a consumer might ask of a sales person during the actual purchase of the product.”23
This “on the spot invention” is the acting process at work. It allows people to develop skills of communication not found in most other areas of learning. What the market place series did was allow the students to put theory into practice which is precisely what the students complained about a decade earlier as in Ross Hyman’s article,
“Students consistently report that they find lecture method irrelevant and uninspiring. This method has been described as ‘non-involvement, non-experiential, non-interest arousing and nonsense as a method of teaching professional responsibility.”24
With the use of an acting technique, if not “the” training technique, known to the theatre as improvisation, the law has been able to train its students f or the real world without harm to real people.
Improvisation
Improvisation was a technique developed by Viola Spolin. It is a method of training actors by playing games.
“The game is a natural group form providing the involvement and personal freedom necessary for experiencing. Games develop personal techniques and skills necessary for the game itself, through playing. Skills are developed at the very moment a person is having all the fun and excitement of playing a game has to offer- this is the exact time he is truly open to receive them.”25
We may now revisit one of the characteristics of the actor, being that acting is never real. At no time is it real people doing real life events for their own purpose. Acting is the use of real life actions to portray an artificial scenario created by someone else for someone else’ s viewing. This has now been done for the advocate, by applying acting techniques to the training of law students.
The main principle of Ms Spolin’ s technique is that a scenario (a game to be played, dealing with a specific problem) must be created. The players must then solve the problem within certain rules. For each game there is a point of concentration that the players work around.
In the Market Day Project, different scenarios were created to learn different aspects of consumer law. This was played around the point of concentration of the need to buy or sell a product, all within the rules of the relevant law. These are the principles of improvisation and the theatre being used to train legal students, the main objective being to develop communication skills.26
The students then “played” out these events ‘”retending” they were real life, for assessment by an interested third party, another characteristic of theatre. These scenarios entertained, as in holding others attention, and did advise the other person and the interested third party. Thus incorporating all elements of the theatre and educating law students into the workings of the law in the “real world” with the “protection” of the theatre.
The law and theatre today
Right up to the present day, some legal practitioners have found it difficult to “rhyme theory with the practice”, as in the case of Tureen Afroz, a lawyer from Bangladesh.
“I realised for the first time that trial advocacy does not mean only knowing the law. It means much more than that. Knowing the law and its application is of course a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. Advocates should more importantly know how to present their case in the court. It requires skill and that was never taught in law schools… Advocacy, as I have learnt now in Australia, is just like a ‘performance’ perhaps a theatrical one. A courtroom is like a ‘stage’ for trial advocacy where they have to do their ‘final performance’.
Of course they have a definite costume (gown) to wear, a theme (theory of the case) to establish, dialogue (arguments) to communicate and above all, an audience (judge, jury, colleagues and clients) to impress. Advocacy is like an art… They should also give particular attention to matters like the way they stand before the court or move their hands while addressing the court. Their voices should be distinct and their speech should be audible. They should always try to make eye contact with the judge and the jury.”27
Mr. Afroz ends this observation, noting that “a successful courtroom performance does not happen by accident. Advocates have to develop this craftsmanship within them.”
Mr. Afroz is not the first to compare the court room with the theatre or to suggest we look to the theatre for the skills needed as an advocate. As far back as 1993, Keith Evans was saying much the same thing. In fact, in his book, The Golden Rule of Advocacy, he dedicated an entire chapter to the Advocacy of the theatre.28
“The court of law is theatre. It should be professional theatre. Your job is to make it professional theatre… you wouldn’t want to be an advocate if there weren’t something of an actor inside you.”29
The chapter begins so promisingly and then stops short of going into the world of the actor to bring out the skills needed by the advocate, particularly communication skills. Mr. Evans enthusiastically puts forth “buzz words” like; entertainment, drama, a good story line and audience, but offers nothing of the training techniques available to the actors to do the simplest thing, such as making eye contact.
Objectively, it seems too easy to simply tell someone to make eye contact. However, that becomes a problem if that person is so shy they are convinced they will “burst into flames” if they look another person in the eye. This may mean that this shy person cannot become an advocate because the legal training offers nothing to improve a person’s confidence. Writers, like Evans, suggest that the skills needed are there for us in the theatre, but none of them actually go to the source and reveal to us the methods used to develop those skills.
Viola Spolin’s techniques of improvisation have two specific exercises for the development of eye contact.30 It is these elements of the training process that are needed to develop the advocate for a life in the public eye of the court.
It may be easiest to apply some of the more basic techniques of the actor by superimposing them into practice while examining the most common of legal training techniques- the moot court.
PART FOUR- THE MOOT
What is mooting?
The origins of mooting have long since disappeared into the blur of history. Some believe it can be traced back to medieval times:
“Young men residing at the Inns as apprentices took instruction from their seniors and were required to perform in moots over several years before they could be admitted as practitioners. Moots were one of the few formal features of the legal education of the time”.31
The mooting process may be defined as “the discussion of a hypothetical case by law students for practice; a hypothetical doubtful case that may be used for discussion.”32
There are three key features of mooting which have survived from historical time to now:
- students assume the roles of advocate before a simulated bench (which may comprise professionals, and/or academic s , or students depending on the formality of the proceedings);
- Students argue points of law before the bench, which a rise from a hypothetical scenario they have been supplied with;
- Students are expected to be able to answer questions from the bench relating to the arguments presented or any other relevant l aw that the students may not have considered.33
There is a difference between a moot and a simulated trial. A moot does not have a jury or witnesses. It does, however, have judges who assess the merits of the cases put forth. Thus the acting techniques presented for the moot would also apply to the simulated court room. For simplicity, the focus of this paper will remain with the moot court.
Like the role-play of Hardy, the “mooters” have been given a predetermined scenario from which to apply the law. Remembering the characteristics of the actor and the theatre, someone other than the mooters has created an artificial situation to which they must react. This information is to be conveyed via speech and gesture, to an interested third party, ideally in an interesting manner. This then fulfils the required elements of theatre – to entertain and advise.
From an education perspective mooting is seen as a good example of assessment, which involves;
Multidimensional approach to students… a form of learning which may be constructivist, experimental and problem-based. Constructivism may then be reduced to having three characteristics:
Firstly, there is a process of knowledge constructed, not of knowledge recording or absorption. Second, learning is knowledge-dependent; people use current knowledge to construct new knowledge. Thirdly, learning is highly turned to the situation in which it takes place.34
The Cambridge University Guide to Mooting has some very definite things to say about what mooting is and isn’t.
Mooting is fun, and it can give you a taste of what it is like to argue cases in court. It is essentially practice court room advocacy on a disputed point of law. Advocacy is widely misunderstood: it is not public speaking; it is not debating; and it is not acting.35
It was stated earlier that advocacy is not acting, but it may be an art, and being an art, as is acting, it may share some of the techniques used b y the actor. If mooting is practice court room advocacy, then the techniques of the actor should also apply to mooting.
PART FIVE- THE ACTOR PREPARES; THE ADVOCATE PREPARES
While the techniques of the actor may be applicable to the advocate, there are still some basic differences. This being so, while the essence and purpose of the techniques remain the same, modifications must be made to adapt them to the circumstances of the legal profession.
Any book on advocacy will tell you that the first and most important thing the advocate must do is prepare his case. For example see Micheal Hyam’s, Advocacy Skills, chapter 2;36 Noel Shaw, Effective Advocacy, chapter 2;37 and Keith Trone and lan Dearden, Advocacy Basics for Solicitors, page 5:
“The most basic of all the ingredients for successful advocacy by solicitors is careful and thorough preparation.”38
They all state the essentiality of preparation before you walk into the c ourt room. It is the same for the actor.
The actor must know something about the character being presented to the audience. The actor does one very important thing before placing a foot onto the stage, being the preparation of mind and body for the task.
Technique 1: relaxation exercises
An actor cannot just walk onto the stage. Otherwise they would take with them all the stress and tensions that they have built up throughout the day that is not in the script. If tension is to be displayed on the stage, then it is the tension the writer has called for in the script not what the actor has brought in with them.
Constantin Stanislavski makes it clear why it is important to be relaxed when doing any type of performance.
To convince you of how physical tensions paralyses or actions, and is bound up with our inner life, let us make an experiment. Over there is a grand piano. Try to lift it.
[The students try lifting the piano but can only manage to raise one corner.]
While you are holding the piano up, multiply quickly thirty-seven times nine,…you can’t do it? Well, then, use your visual memory to recall all the stores along the street from the corner to the theatre… can’t do that either?39
The student is asked to perform several more seemingly simple tasks while holding up the piano, but can’t. Once the student sets the edge of the piano down is he able to perform all the tasks asked of him, especially the ones concerning memory of facts.
Does this prove that muscular tautness interferes with inner emotional experiences? … before you attempt to create anything it is necessary for you to get your muscles in proper condition, so that they do not impede your actions.40
The point is, if your muscles are tense, then it interferes with your appearance and memory capabilities to function properly. It is just as important for the advocate entering the court room to be relaxed as it is for the actor stepping out onto the stage. Any performance is the same thing with the same level of stress. The only difference is that the actor knows this and has developed exercises to overcome the tensions. Advocates do not know this because they have not been trained for it.
Relaxation exercises should be taught to student advocates from the very beginning of their academic career, just as student actors are taught them. This is not something only for a student’s academic life; it is life practice in more effective advocacy.
There are difference between the actor’s preparation and the advocate’s preparation. For these purposes, the actor is standing in the wings of a theatre with no one from the audience watching what is being done. Here, the actor has room to swing arms, bend, squat, shake and do what the actor has been trained to do.
For the advocate, they may be in some public area, dressed in formal day wear, with limited movement. What is needed is a relaxation method that is both subtle and effective- the “isometric squeeze relaxation”.41 What is important is that the advocates know the difference between muscles being tense and relaxed. This even means knowing how to breathe.
There is a difference between relaxed and tense breathing. One sure sign of tension is an audible struggle in a persons breathing pattern.
A quick shortness of breath may indicate that you yourself do not believe what you are saying, which in turns sets off an alarm to the listener to pay close attention, to determine if there is a falsehood being said.
By squeezing the stomach, even while sitting, it is possible to:
slow breathing pace, moderate rhythm, and encourage greater use of the diaphragm. Passively breathing in or out through the nose or lips, or synchronizing breathing rhythm, and pauses.42
These isometric exercises can be modified to accommodate the court room; pressing down on the arm of a chair will not draw attention from the judge or jury, but it will help the advocate release tension in his body.
Technique 2: scene analysis
The actor does not just walk onto a stage and then think of why they are there and what they have to do.
Whatever happens on the stage must be for a purpose. Even keeping your seat must be for a purpose, a specific purpose, not merely the general proposes of being in sight of the audience.43
The actor needs to have some idea of where they are going and what they are going to do “physically”, before they make a move in front of an audience. Mooters should have the same information before they enter the court room and stand before the judges. Mooters should think of the court room as the scene of a play. With this in mind, the mooters can use an actor’s technique of scene analysis to prepare themselves for the moot.
Some actors use a three step process to analyse a scene.
1. “What is the character literally doing?
2. What is the essential action of what the character is doing in this scene?
3. What is that action like to me? It’s as if .. . “44
All of these questions are asked on the “other” side of the door. That is, before the mooter opens the door and enters the room.
The first step is important even though it may not be so obvious when applied to mooting.
Step 1 : What is the character literally doing?
When it speaks of “literally doing”, it means literally doing. To the mooter this should mean thinking about what they are going to do when they first walk into the court room. The answer is to walk into the room, find a chair in the appropriate place and sit down. This would usually be the appellant/plaintiff to the right side facing the bench and the respondent/defendant to the left side of the bench and facing it. That is the literal action involved. See http://www.law.murdoch.edu.au/mcb/mootinqetiquette.html for a diagram of the relative bench positions.45
This takes away some of the responsibility for determining what their next step is to be. The mooters already know the first thing they have to do. This starts the moot off on a positive footing. The mooter already knows something, and unless they have sat in the wrong chair, they have done at least one thing right from the start.
If the mooter does, for some reason, have trouble with entering or leaving a room, they can practice Viola Spolin’s improvisational exercise of “entrances and exists”.46
Step 2 : What is the Essential Action of What the Character is Doing in the Scene?
Here the character is the mooter themselves. The mooters should ask themselves what their ‘”job” is, and what they are doing in the court room? The mooter must be able to answer these questions otherwise they have no purpose being there, and as Stanislavski insists, no purpose in being on the stage. This now incorporates the principle of role-playing for the advocate.
Unlike the actor who is only pretending to be another character doing something, the mooter is the one who is really there to do something. The mooter is there because a client wants them to be there. Be it real or imagined, the mooter, like the advocate, is in that court room not for themselves but for someone else. The whole reason for their being there is for someone else’s benefit.
An advocate is not an advocate of their own needs. An advocate is there for someone else’s needs. This mind set of “doing it for someone else should be instilled in the students from the very beginning. The motto of all law students should be “I’m doing this for somebody else”. Somebody else’s life depends on it. In this respect, the Cambridge mooters guide is wrong. Mooters are acting. They are acting for a client that does not really exist. But they must perform the actions as if the client does exist.
Step 3 : What is that Action Like to Me? It’s as if…
The difference between the actor and the mooter becomes very obvious in the application of this step. For the actor, it can be a difficult and complicated process of going into past experiences and trying to remember a situation that is close to what is being called for in the scene. That past situation must be an action that is appropriate to what is being required by the script. It must have the same intensity, joy, anger, or passion, whatever it is that the character has to be doing for that moment on stage.47
If the actor cannot think of something directly, then a process of a “piece at a time” may be applied. That is, taking a piece of the action asked for and matching that piece to something familiar until there is an entire unit of pieces that will come together to produce the asked for action. This process can also be used by the mooter.
The mooter can take each piece of the court room action and assemble it into segments, then apply an “as if” to each segment of the mooter’s argument. For example; in one part of the argument the mooter is asking for attention to some specific detail. In another part, asking the court for something, in another, wanting the court to visualise something; each segment being an action; an “as if” for the judges.
The mooter should focus on what their job is and how they will do that job. This being to represent the client the best way they know how. If that is not what they are doing, then that mooter’s training is not developing them into an ethical, responsible workable advocate, or any other member of the legal profession.
Technique 3 : the audience
There have been many theories about the actor’s attitude to the audience. Some would have the audience disappear behind a wall.48 The most important thing an actor should remember is that the audience is there to enjoy themselves. They have paid money for the actor to entertain and advise them. They are not working against the actor; they want to work with the actor to have a good performance. The audience wants to be included in the performance, they are the reason the actor is there. They are the reason the actor has a job.
The role of the audience must become a concrete part of theatre training… The audience is the most revered member of the theatre. Without an audience there is no theatre… When the audience is understood to be an organic part of the theatre experience, the student-actor is immediately given a host’s sense of responsibility towards them which has in it no nervous tension… each member of the audience must have an individual experience… When theatre training can enable… actors to think through the role of the audience as individuals and as part of the process… a whole new form of theatre presentation will emerge49 (12-14)
These same principles may also be applied to the student, as well as, the practising advocate. If law students are trained to perceive the judges and juries as threats to their efforts, fear and tension will hinder any true progress at trial. Any communication skills that have been acquired will dissolve. Eye contact will be strained, and voices will pass through tight dry throats.50
But, if the student advocate is trained to accept the role of the judges and juries as included in “their” process, as members of a cumulative effort, with the same goal, then the advocate will start presenting their information from a more relaxed posture. Addressing the court or jury will not be from a fearful distance, but from a more amicable perspective. Instead o f the advocate reaching up to judge or jury, it will be one person talking to another about a serious matter that requires special attention. It will be an interaction of people with mutual respect for each other, with a mutual interest in a serious matter. This is a perfect example of how the training techniques of the actor may be applied to the training of student advocates.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this paper has been to introduce a new method of legal training for law students using the techniques of the actor, director and theatrical instructor. It did this by looking at ways the law is being taught today and how the use of acting techniques may help to improve legal teaching.
To do this, the paper established what advocacy means. It then pointed out any similarities between the actor and the advocate, and more importantly, any differences. The paper focused on training techniques such as role playing, simulation and finally the most widely used and historical method o f legal training, the moot.
It applied acting techniques to show how the actor’s use of improvisation to develop specific aspects of the performance could, and are, being applied to the training of student advocates. Particular attention was applied to such presentation details as eye contact, speech and the actor’s attitude to the audience, and finally how the actor should analyse a scene of a play to its very basic level of understanding in order to gain the most out of the performance.
It has been said that the techniques of the theatre are the techniques of communication. It has also been said that one of the most important skills of the advocate is good communication skills. As has been shown some of the techniques of training the actor are already being used to train the law student with role-playing. More of these actor training techniques should be used to train law students.
The techniques would be most effective with regards to personal confidence development such as eye contact, and group interaction and problem solving. It is possible to apply the actor’s technique of scene analysis when mooting, as well as, the essentials of being relaxed for the presentation. It is best to have an advocate who is prepared not only for his client’s case but prepared mentally and physically to do the job of the advocate as best as possible.
This can all be possible by applying training techniques for the performance of the art of acting to the advocate’s art of court room performance of the law.
James E. Smith
Footnotes
1. Butterworth’s Concise Legal Dictionary, third edition, Peter Butt (ed)
2. V. Spolin, (1963 ): 14
3. R. Cohen, (1988 ): 27
4. R. Cohe n , (1988): 71; M . Burder,(1986 ): 19
5. R. Cohen, (1988): 50-55
6. Learned Hand, (1931): 87
7. R. Cohen, (1988): 20
8. A. Hicks, (1996): 4
9. W. Shakespeare. Hamlet. 3:2; 24-25
10. K. Trone. (1993):5
11. F. Marti n, (1995): 46
12. The Pearce Report (1987)
13. F. Martin (1995) : 46-47
14. F. Martin (1995): 47
15. R. Hyams (1995): 65
16. R. Hyams (1995) : 65
17. S . Berns (2000): 267
18. S. Hardy (2004)
19. S. Hardy (2004)
20. S. Hardy (2004): 205
21. S. Hardy (2004): 205
22. S . Hardy (2004): 207
23. S . Hardy (2004): 206
24. R.Hyams {1995 ): 64
25. V. Spolin (1963): 4-5
26. S. Hardy (2004): 204
27. T. Afroz (2005 ): 90
28 K . Evans (1993): Chapter 5
29. K.Evans (1993): 31
30. V.Spolin (1963): 176
31. A. Lynch (1996): 68
32. Cambridge University Guide to Mooting
33. A. Lynch (1996): 70
34. A. Lynch (1996): 77
35. Cambridge University Guide to Mooting (2005): forward
36. R. Hymans (1990): chapter 2
37. N.Shaw (1996): chapter 2
38. K.Trone (1993): page 5
39. C. Stanislavski (1937): 96
40. C . Stanislavski (1937): 97
41. J . Smith (1985): 61-82
42. J. Smith (1985): 115
43. C . Stanislavski (1937): 35
44. M Burder (1986): 19
45. Mooting etiquette
46. V. Spolin (1963): 167
47. M. Burder (1986): 13-18
48. V. Spolin (1963): 12
49. V. Spolin (1963): 12-14
50. Symptoms of stage fright: antion.com/articles
References
Keith Evans (1993) The Golden Rule of Advocacy, Blackstone Press Limited
MilIissa Bruder et al (1986) A Practical Handbook For The Actor, Vintage Books
Micheal Hyam (1990) Advocacy Skills third edition, Blackstone Press Ltd.
Noel Shaw (1996) Effective Advocacy, The Law Book Company
Johathan Smith (1985) Relaxation Dynamics A cognitive-behavioral Approach to relaxation, Research Press
Viola Spolin (1963) Improvisation for the Theatre, Northwestern University Press
Constantin Stanislavski ( 1937) An Actor Prepares, Redwood Burn Limited
Keith Trone and lan Dearden (1993) Advocacy Basics for Solicitors, The Law Book Company Limited
Richard Cohen (1988) THEATRE, Mayfield Publishing Company
Andy Hicks, Creative Action Methods in Group Work, Speechmark Publishing Ltd.
Reports
Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, ‘Australian Law Schools: A Discipline Assessment for the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission ‘ (Pierce Report), Canberra, AGPS, 1997
Journals
Tureen Afroz (2005) ‘Learning Trial Advocacy: an outsider’s experience, 30 Alternate Legal Journal 2
Sandra Berns (2000) ‘Through A Glass Darkly’ Alternate Law Journal Vol.25, No 6
Ross Hyams (1995) ‘THE TEACHING OF SKILLS: REBUILDING-NOT JUST THINGERING AROUND THE EDGES, 13 Journal of Professional Legal Education 1
Samantha Hardy (2004) ‘Role Playing in Consumer Protection Law: The Market Day Project’, 14 Legal Education Review 2
Fiona Martin (1995) ‘THE INTEGRATION OF LEGAL SKILLS INTO THE CURRICULUM OF THE UNDERGRADUATE LAW DEGREE: THE QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY PERSPECTIVE’, 13 Journal of Professional Legal Education 1
Andrew Lynch (1996) ‘Why Do We Moot? Exploring the Role of Mooting in Legal Education’, 7 Legal Education Review 1
Internet
Learned Hand, (1931), To Yale Law Graduates, page 87 http://www.commonlaw.com/Hand.html
Mooting etiquette http://www.law.murdoch.edu.au/mcb/mootingetiquette.html
Symptoms of Stage fright http://www.antion.com/articles/stagefright.htm
