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From 18 to 21 Nov 2010, six trainers from the Advocacy Training Council, United Kingdom (“ATC”), conducted the Advocacy Teacher Training Course (“ATTC”) at Istana Kehakiman, Putrajaya, utilising the Conference Hall and five courtrooms.

50 participants from various bodies such as the Judiciary, Malaysian Bar, Attorney General’s Chambers, Securities Commission, Bank Negara Malaysia, Malaysian Inner Temple Alumni Association, Lincoln’s Inn Alumni Association of Malaysia, Judicial and Legal Training Institute, and public and private universities attended this training course.

This initiative started in July 2010 when Chief Justice of Malaysia, YAA Tun Dato’ Seri Zaki Tun Azmi, contacted the various bodies set out above and enquired whether they would be interested in participating in such a training course.  Bar Council agreed to participate in the ATTC, as its involvement would be in line with one of the Bar Council’s objectives: ie to ensure a high standard of advocacy amongst Members of the Malaysian Bar.

Upon receiving encouraging responses from all the bodies, an Organising Committee was then set up to deal with the logistics of organising and ensuring the smooth running of the ATTC.  The Committee consisted of representatives from all the bodies, was chaired by Tan Sri James Foong, Federal Court Judge, and held four meetings between August and November 2010.  It allocated 10 places to the Malaysian Bar whilst the remaining spots were distributed amongst the participating bodies.

The ATTC was designed to teach Members of the Bar and advocates/legal practitioners from the other bodies the Hampel method of advocacy teaching/training.  The ATTC was not an advocacy course, but rather a course to train advocacy trainers/teachers.  The Hampel teaching method requires participants to perform as advocates in a simulated courtroom environment under the guidance of experienced and trained practitioners who will observe their performance and offer guidance.  The Bar Vocational Course in England has adopted the Hampel method as its standard teaching method, and such training programmes have been successfully conducted in other jurisdictions including Hong Kong, Pakistan and India.

      Photo by Faiz Azmi

Having undergone the ATTC, the advocates are equipped to teach other advocates and legal practitioners using the Hampel method.  They would also be able to educate other senior practitioners to become trainers utilising the Hampel method in the future.

The trainers from United Kingdom were Judges and senior Barristers.  They were led by the Chairman of the ATC, Charles Haddon-Cave QC, and included Edwin Glasgow QC, Judge Anthony Leonard QC, Judge Jeffrey Pegden QC, Joanna Korner CMG QC and Peter Birkett QC.  The trainers agreed to conduct such training pro bono and only their flights, accommodation and related costs had to be borne by the participating bodies.  The trainers literally flew in on the morning of 18 Nov 2010 and departed the evening of 21 Nov 2010.

The participants from the Malaysian Bar were Robert Lazar, Gopal Sreenevasan, Tunku Farik Tunku Ismail, Ravindran Nekoo, Sitpah Selvaratnam, Alan Gomez, Dhinesh Baskaran, Raja Eileen Soraya Raja Aman, Vatsala Ratnasabapathy, Mohd Arief Emran Arifin, Siva Kumar Kanagasabai and Brendan Navin Siva.  Other Members of the Bar who attended the training course on behalf of the Malaysian Inner Temple Alumni Association and the Lincoln’s Inn Alumni Association of Malaysia were V Sithambaram, Chris Leong, Oommen Koshy, Ezane Chong, Ariff Rozhan and Stanley Augustin.

All the participants agreed that the ATTC was extremely successful and beneficial.  All of them were eager to start training advocates and legal practitioners using the Hampel method.  This method would be best suited to teaching advocacy to lawyers in their first to third years of practice, as it aims to identify and correct basic mistakes in advocacy and to offer guidance to new practitioners on the correct way to present themselves and their arguments in a courtroom.

The Organising Committee intends to organise regular advocacy courses and will meet again in the near future to map out the programme for 2011.  As such courses will undoubtedly be of benefit to all legal practitioners who are starting out in their legal careers, the Committee aims to train as many new practitioners as possible in the future. 

Brendan Navin Siva
Chairperson
Professional Standards & Development Committee