General interest articles and resources
An extract from “Free Country: Selected Lectures and Talks”, a collection of speeches by Sir Sydney Kentridge. For decades, Sydney Kentridge QC has been admired as a brilliant advocate, an outstanding lawyer, and, during the apartheid years in South Africa, a courageous defender of the individual against an oppressive state. The book is available from the Bar Library.
An article by Advocates Katz and Osborne on the dual (or divided) Bar and the cab rank rule applicable to advocates. This article was published in the Advocate magazine in April 2004.
Sir Francis Bacon – ‘Of judicature’ – a speech delivered over 400 years ago to a new Judge, which still applies to judges and advocates today.
“There is likewise due to the public a civil reprehension of advocates,
where there appeareth cunning counsel, gross neglect, slight information, indiscreet pressing, or an over-bold defence. And let not the counsel at the bar chop [argue] with the judge, nor wind himself into the handling of the cause anew after the judge hath declared his sentence; but on the other side, let not the judge meet the cause half way, nor give occasion for the party to say his counsel or proofs
were not heard.”
An article by retired Judge President of the Supreme Court of Appeal, Justice Louis Harms, on what appellate courts expect to see in heads of argument.
Advocate magazine, December 2009
An article on the history and role of Queens Counsel in England, for those interested in the origins, role and controversies surrounding the system of awarding Senior Counsel status (colloquially known as ‘silk’) in South Africa.
The Role Of Queen’s Counsel In English Legal System. Controversies, Ideas, Reforms.https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/english-legal-system/?page=2
Links to general interest videos on Youtube
Lecture by Justice Roland Sutherland (Judge of the High Court of South Africa) on the conceptual nature of the adversarial system of litigation, criticism and defence thereof, and the role of counsel in the adversarial system, as a framework for understanding an advocate’s professional ethical obligations.This lecture was given to pupils of the Johannesburg Bar on 30 May 2017.
A documentary on pupillage at the English Bar
Ethics blog for pupils 