Skills required for effective legal advocacy

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Legal profession is a service oriented profession among which legal advocacy is one of the important  service. When a person does legal wrong act against other person, judicial proceeding begins, since  then practising lawyer has to provide legal advocacy. Legal advocacy covers overall aspects of judicial  proceedings including client consultations, impartial recommendations, point out the core conflicts,  filling case in court, and timely attend the court hearing and many more as required. Therefore, in  legal advocacy, there requires many skills to conduct the tasks effectively and efficiently.  

American realist Karl Llewellyn stated that ‘’certain law jobs are necessary to be carried out for the  effective functioning of law as an institution. He further explained that law jobs are of universal  nature and therefore, necessary in most types of social organization. He categories five law jobs that  also included law as technology to enhance skill of official craftsmen of law. Max Weber emphasis  upon the professionalization of legal work for the development of society in which formally rational  legal system can functions. He explains legal profession for systematization of administration of  justice to form a rational society in place. Providing the legal advocacy to the people is connected  with the Code of Conduct, which strictly states that four primary grounds: 

∙ Accountability 

∙ Confidentiality 

∙ Dignity/honestly 

∙ Transparency  

Skills for effective legal advocacy is based on these four primary ground and without realizing these  primary ground, no skills can do justice to the client. Therefore following are the skills of lawyer to  provide effective legal advocacy: 

1. Communication Skill 

2. Client Interviewing and legal counseling 

3. Client’s care 

4. Organization of Argument 

5. Oral Argument 

6. General presentation 

7. Advocacy skill 

Communication Skill: Communication skill helps lawyer to not only know but to understand the  details from the client, and it help lawyer to speak in plain language which is familiar and meaningful  for the client. One cannot help if he/she cannot understand the problem clearly, since the client  does not know which fact is important in case proceeding, so they probably tell whole story, so it is  important for the lawyer to communicate the whole story and then try to analyze each segment of  the story to discover the historically connected facts and events. That’s why it is important to  communicate with the client many times to have proper understanding about:

∙ What is the intention of client?  

∙ Whether the client want to lodge the case or whether the client want to accept the claim ∙ What amount of compensation is to claim before the court? 

There are many aspect of client, financial, emotional, social standard and many more, while  communicating with client, lawyer must be patience to hear all the story of client, which will reflect to above questions. Without knowing the client clearly, no lawyer can determine the goal in such  case, since legal advocacy is client oriented service. Therefore, for a effective legal advocacy, lawyer  have to know about the client more clearly and be able to understand the intention of client.  Without having communication skill, lawyer cannot represent the client in court.  

Client Interviewing and legal counselling:  

Lawyer have to ask certain questions to client, that helps lawyer to prepare well in the case. Client  Interview has to be a confidential interview, which helps client to be honest and true. Lawyer has to  make confidential environment to take client interview and supporting attitude is must. 

Legally speaking, client has to go through many phase during the judicial proceeding and the lawyer is only one who can help the client throughout the process. That’s why lawyer must have skill to  conduct client interviewing by providing proper environment also it is technically time bounded so  lawyer must give more time before judicial proceeding for interviewing the client.  

While taking interview, lawyer have to be consciously present with well-prepared pattern of  questions, and while preparing question, legal practitioner might require to ask sensitive question,  so the language must be sensible, meaningful and professional. Therefore, sense of security and  confidentiality is important marks for taking effective interview.  

Legal counselling is a part of legal awareness but this is concerned with the case specifically. There  are person who don’t know about how judicial proceeding works and laws are technical subject too,  so it is important role of lawyer to provide true legal counselling to bring clarity in case.  

Client’s care 

As a service oriented profession with high morality as its uniqueness, lawyer have to be skillful to  provide care to the client. Even though codes of conduct don't allow legal practitioner to be  emotional, there are many other skills to care the client Legal practitioner has the role to care client  and following are some examples: 

a. Punctual habit is important for caring client for interview, for hearing in court within the  limited time, for providing information of care to the client timely, for handling in client’s  breakdown phases etc. 

b. Honesty is inevitable character of legal practitioner for client, since the case is all handling by  lawyer and only he/she know all the facts, so to make the client confident over the legal  advocacy. With honesty legal practitioner can wins the confidence of client. 

c. Confidentiality of facts and arguments is also important to care client, since client has  handover all the needed evidence of the case so one way of caring client is to operate the  case confidentially  

d. Telling truth is also important, legal practitioner has to speak truth to the client, despite  making false promises. 

Therefore, for client’s care, legal practitioner has to develop many skills. 

4. Organization of Argument:  

 Legal practitioner have the duty to prepare the argument in time and organize the process of  argument. Organized argument can only assist the judge to make judgement, otherwise the judge cannot understand the case and that might lead to unpredictable conclusion.  

Argument are different in various stages of adjudication, pre-trial stage, trial stage and Post – Trial  stage. Each stage of adjudication has different arguments, and legal practitioner have to organize  argument. Organization of argument is not preparing argument rather it means legal practitioner has  to plan the number of argument to state in court, it has to be in serial number, focusing on  complementary arguments for proving the claim. One argument can be based on other arguments  too, in such situation, the argument have to be organized. 

1. Facts 

2. Arguments 

3. Claim  

These three phases are must include in argument. Each phase have to be prepared well so the facts  can pin point the argument, despite directing to other unnecessary facts. Therefore, for providing  the legal advocacy service, the legal practitioner must know the stages and organize the argument  promptly.  

4. Oral Argument: 

Oral argument need much more preparation, since legal advocacy is all about speaking in the  court on behalf of client.  

∙ Must make eye contact with the judge and do not point finger on judges and  opposite party 

∙ Must provide clearly and avoid inappropriate language in court 

∙ Must be prepare with law books to point out the laws  

∙ Must show respect to the court  

∙ Must follow the decorum of court.  

5. General presentation:  

Legal practitioner must need presentation skill for effective legal advocacy. Body language,  fluent language, format of speaking and focus on the claim lodge in the court, and the evidence  are important parts of general presentation. Presentation skill develop confidence in legal  practitioner that helps to provide effective legal advocacy. 

6. Advocacy skill:  

Advocacy skill is inevitable skill for providing the effective legal advocacy, since the primary work  of legal practitioners is to persuade the court to come to the decision favorable to the client.  

This skill is uniqueness of legal practitioners, since different cases requires different way of  persuading the court, which may requires social pressure, strong legal based, justice oriented  argument, evidence etc. But this is different skill from one legal practitioner to other legal  practitioners, hence there is no rule to direct the path of advocacy skill, it takes lot of experience 

to hold the attitude of persuading the court on favor of client. That’s why legal advocacy is also  taken as art.  

Therefore these above are the important skills of legal practitioner for providing effective legal  advocacy


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