Speaking in Court

This book attempts to chronologically map the changes in court advocacy in England and Wales over the last three centuries. Advocacy, the means by which a barrister puts their client's case to the court and jury, certainly did not develop according to an over-riding logical plan, but has grown piecemeal and at an uneven pace; the result of a complex interplay of many influences. Andrew Watson cites numerous principal factors, from the effect on juniors of successful styles deployed by senior advocates; changes in court procedure; reforms in laws determining who and what may be put before courts; the amount of media reporting of court cases and public and press opinion about the acceptable limits of advocates' tactics and oratory. This book explores the extent to which juries are used in trials and the social origins of those serving on them; greater education of jurors and lessening susceptibility to emotive appeals; and an increasing awareness by advocates of the effectiveness of drawing allegories from newspapers, novels, radio, films, television and, increasingly, the internet. The formal teaching of advocacy was only introduced comparatively recently; and a relationship and new technology will, very probably, exert a strong influence on future forensic oratory. Speaking In Court provides a readable history of advocacy and the many factors that have shaped it, and takes a far wider view of the history of advocacy than many titles, analysing the 20 th Century developments which are often overlooked. This book will be of interest to general readers, law practitioners interested in how advocacy has developed in courts of yesteryear, teachers of advocacy who want to locate there subject in history and impart this to their students, and to law students curious about the origins of what they are learning.