Solicitors do not have the advocacy experience or training to appoint themselves solicitor-advocates

Tim Dutton QC raises valid concerns about solicitors appointing themselves solicitor-advocates (see [2008] Gazette, 31 July, 2). The training solicitors receive in advocacy is quite pitiful and often learned on the hoof. Barristers receive proper training in advocacy during the bar finals and during pupillage.

Trial advocacy is not easy and I do fear for people represented at trial by inexperienced, inadequately trained and timid advocates. Most barristers have been toughened up on small matters and properly earn and learn their skills. Most solicitors are self-aware enough to know if they can ‘cut it’ at trial.

As a solicitor-advocate, I come across all types of opponents – usually senior juniors and the occasional silk – and these advocates are good to exceptional. I frequently come across experienced solicitors at interlocutory hearings who are very much more capable of coming up with practical solutions there than even the most learned counsel. Barristers argue, solicitors find solutions. These are two quite different skills.

If solicitors get automatic higher rights of audience, I fear that inexperienced advocates may well overreach themselves. That said, even in the county courts I cannot ever recall a trial against another solicitor.

I fear that solicitors whose turnover has been ‘credit-crunched’ may well be pressured by partners to chance their arm by carrying out their own trial advocacy. I would not like to be on such a learning curve in the case of, for instance, a dentist or a plumber.

For cases involving liberty, money, contact with children or indeed anything else which is of such significance that a trial is warranted, I suspect the public would want an advocate who had been through either a recognised and valued training regime or had proved themselves elsewhere.