Pupillage Training - Courses and Materials

Detailed Lesson Programme

Get a detailed view of the scope of our pupillage training courses and materials that pupil supervisors can use. Approximately 150 lessons: videos, text based lessons, and exercises that cover all of the main aspects of the PSC

Developing your research and business development skills – resources for pupils

Developing your research and business development skills (video)
Pupils will need to fill out the work sheet “Assessing your research and business development skills”. This should identify any gaps that the pupil has in relation to their legal and non-legal research skills. Additional free courses that a pupil may want to take are also included, covering substantive areas of law (eg environmental law or the HELP courses) are listed, plus links to free business development courses that the pupil may want to take. Once all of these options have been considered a training timetable will need to be agreed between the pupil and the pupil supervisor and the pupil should aim to complete all of the scheduled training during the first and/or second six.

Building a trauma informed practice - course

What is a trauma informed practice and why does it matter? (video)
Managing physical and mental health at the Bar (video)
How to build a trauma informed practice (video)
Practical matters if you want to build a trauma informed practice (video)
Communicating with clients (video)
Trauma informed interview techniques (video plus role play activities)

Developing your Critical Thinking Skills- course

Course textbook “Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking” by Matthew van Cleave.
What is critical thinking? (video)
What core skills do you need in order to be able to think critically? (video)
Activity: Complete the Watson Glaser test (video)
Introduction to logical fallacies (video)
More logical fallacies (video)
More logical fallacies to know and understand (video)
Logical fallacies - the discrimination collection (video)
Lies, lies and damn statistics (video)
Appeals to authority (video)
Assessing whether a source is credible (video)
Assessing reliability and authority (video)
Meaning analysis (video)
Do the Watson Glaser test (video)

The key elements of a legal argument and the importance of ethics to persuasive advocacy

The Trial of Dick Turpin – read through the court transcript and then complete the following exercises.

Exercises: Read through the court transcript and explain to your supervisor what the case is about.

Draft the indictment.
What are the issues with the indictment listed here?
Write an advice for Dick Turpin (Assume for this exercise that the ECHR/HRA and all current evidential and procedural rules apply)
Draft a defence statement for Dick Turpin based on current law (including human rights) and procedural rules.
Prepare a plea in mitigation on behalf of Dick Turpin and present it to your supervisor.
What ethical rules are raised in this case? What do you think of the ethical conduct of the Judge, Sir William Chapple, and the prosecution?

The purpose of an introduction or opening speech (text lesson)
Historical hints and tips regarding opening speeches (video)
What is ethos? (text lesson)
The figures of ethos (text lesson)
Linking the concept of ethos with modern legal practice (text lesson)
Ethos and the core duties of a barrister (text lesson)
Ethos and social media (text lesson)
The relationship between ethics and advocacy (video)

Examples of opening speeches R v Hamilton Rowan

Exercise 1 – analysis of the opening speech in R v Hamilton Rowan (Curran case)
Exercise 2 – pupil to draft their own opening speech for this case and consider what style of advocacy they are more comfortable with.
Exercise 3 – pupil to verbally present the opening speech they have drafted and reflect on what they felt worked well and what parts they felt worked less well.
Exercise 4 - the trial of Mordaunt v Mordaunt
Exercise 5 - draft the opening speech for Dr Deane in the case of Mordaunt v Mordaunt
Exercise 6 - compare your opening speech with Dr Deanes opening speech

Historical guidance on the statement of facts (text lesson)
Using Ciceronian stasis theory to paint pictures with words in your statement of facts (text lesson and activity)
Using emotion in the statement of facts (text lesson)
What tone to use in your statement of facts - historical guidance (text lesson)
The structure of a legal argument (text lesson)
Using appeals to the emotion in legal arguments (text lesson)
Hints and tips regarding your peroration or closing speech (text lesson)

Ethical Duties

To whom do you owe ethical duties? (text lesson)

1. Duties to your client. (text lesson)

The independence of the Bar (text lesson)
Duties to your client - what to do when your client has admitted their guilt to you (text lesson)
Duties to your client - other duties you owe your client (text lesson)
Duties to your client - the limits to the loyalty you owe a client (text lesson)
“You should not” by Henry Wandell - ethical guidance in relation to your clients (text lesson)

2. Duties to your opponents

“You should not...” - ethical guidance on how to conduct yourself in relation to other members of the Bar (text lesson/text)
Duties towards litigants in person (text lesson)

3. Duties to the Court

“You should not...” - ethical guidance on how to conduct yourself in court. (text lesson/text)
Duties to courts - duties to judges (text lesson)
Duties to courts - how to handle judicial bullying – Pupil to read Chapter 10 of the Harman Independent Review on Bullying, Harassment and Sexual Harassment at the Bar and answer questions on Chapter 10.

4. Duties you owe the State and wider society

Duties you owe the State - duty to not bring vexatious claims (SLAPPs) - (text lesson)
Duties you owe the State - the duty of punctuality when attending Court (text lesson)
Duties to the State - duty not to be unduly influenced by wealthy clients (text lesson)
Duties to the State - duty to uphold the law and not assist clients to circumvent the law (text lesson)
Duties to the State - duty to restrain a client from doing unlawful acts (text lesson)
Duties you owe the State - duty to ensure that no one's reputation is attacked without due cause (text lesson)

5. Duties you owe to your practice

“You should not...” - ethical guidance in relation to you and your office (text lesson)
“You should not...” - ethical guidance on managing your practice (text lesson)

6. Data protection duties

7. Duties you owe to yourself

“You should not” - your morals (text lesson)
“You should not”- your health (text lesson)

8. Duties that others owe you not to do

How to deal with bullying, harassment and sexual harassment (text lesson)
Exercise - what is bullying and harassment
The Harman Independent Review Recommendations - (exercise)
Sexual harassment and abuse of power at the Bar (text lesson)
An overview of the different routes that you can use to raise issues relating to bullying and harassment (text lesson)

9. Discussion points on legal ethics

Analysis of the Canons of Ethics that were published by the American Bar Association in 1908, in order to establish if these principles still hold good today.

Witness handling

Introduction to witness handling in examination in chief (text lesson)
Historical hints and tips regarding witness handling and EIC (text lesson)
Modern perspectives on examination in chief (text lesson)
The ten commandments of examination in chief (text lesson)
Actual examples of examination in chief for you to study and analyse – read examples from the Nuremberg Trials.

Exercise 1

Exercise 1 - analyse the following examples of EIC from the Nuremberg Trials and
(i) Identify the techniques that are being used and identify why they are being used and whether they are effective given the context.
(ii) Analyse whether the court transcripts selected are examples of trauma informed questioning.
(iii) Role play asking the EIC questions in some of these trials, in a situation which calls for a high degree of tact and sensitivity.

Exercise 2

Exercise 2 - summarise the ten commandments of EIC

The Golden Rules of Cross-Examination (text lesson)
Prems general guidance on cross-examination (text lesson)
Modern rules of cross-examination (text lesson)
Lessons from history - the objects of cross-examination (video)
Lessons from history - the importance of preparation in XX (video)
Lessons from history - how to begin your XX (video)
Lessons from history - the dangers of a reckless or unnecessary XX (video)
Lessons from history - stop XX when you have your point (video)
Lessons from history - Don't use legal and technical expressions in XX (video)
Lessons from history - do not ask vexatious questions just to please your client (video)
Lessons from history - the importance of understanding what makes people tick (video)

Famous cross-examinations - The cross examination of Meletus by Socrates (text lesson)
Famous cross-examinations - The XX of Vatinius by Cicero (text lesson)
Famous cross-examinations - The cross examination of Parliament by Charles the First, King of England (text lesson)

Cross-examination exercise – draft your cross examination of Minnock in the case of the murder at the Bellevue hospital
Cross-examination exercise 2 – compare your XX with the XX that was actually given in this case.
Role play of the cross examination of Minnock in the Bellevue Murder case
Re-examination

Exercise 3 - bringing it all together

Understanding legal arguments

Course textbook “Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking” by Matthew van Cleave.

What is an argument?
Video presentation - what is an argument?
Exercise 1 on identifying arguments (text lesson)
Exercise 1 – answers (text lesson)
Identifying arguments (text lesson)
Video presentation - identifying arguments
Exercise 2 - identifying arguments questions (text lesson)
Exercise 2 - identifying arguments answers (text lesson)
Arguments v explanations (text lesson)
Exercise 3 - arguments v explanations assessment (text lesson)
Exercise 3 – answers (text lesson)
More complex argument structures (text lesson)
Exercise 4 - understanding more complex argument structures – assessment (text lesson)
Exercise 4 answers (text lesson)
Using your own paraphrases of premises and conclusions to reconstruct arguments in standard form (text lesson)
What makes a valid argument? (text lesson)
Exercise 5 - determine whether an argument is valid using the informal test of validity
Exercise 5 - answers
Soundness of an argument (text lesson)
Understanding the difference between deductive vs inductive arguments (text lesson)
Arguments with missing premises (text lesson)
Exercise 6 - Supply the missing premise or premises needed in order to make the following arguments valid. (text lesson)
Exercise 6 answers
Task – write out a skeleton argument written by someone in Chambers using standard form and then discuss the arguments they used with them.
The relationship between arguments with missing premises and bigoted or bad faith arguing (text lesson)
Assuring, guarding and discounting (text lesson)
Exercise 7: Which rhetorical techniques (assuring, guarding, discounting) are being using in the following passages? (text lesson)
Exercise 7 answers (text lesson)
Evaluative language (text lesson)
Analysing a real life argument (text lesson)

The art of persuasion (classical legal rhetoric)

Introducing legal rhetoric - case analysis techniques (video)
The structure of a rhetorical argument (video)
Hints and tips regarding opening speeches - lessons from history and classical legal rhetoric (video)
The canon of memory (video)
The canon of delivery (video)