A solicitor embarks on a first visit to the Crown Court as an advocate with great trepidation.

Who cannot remember those fearful days as an articled clerk when, sweat dripping from your brow, you had to take your ego in your hands and nervously explain to learned counsel why it was that your firm had repeatedly failed to warn the defendant of his forthcoming jury trial and why it was now necessary for the court to adjourn a three-week hearing with 64 prosecution witnesses and an expert who had travelled to the UK from South Carolina, USA.

It comes from the feeling of inferiority that is inbred into all of us when we first venture out into that cold adult world to be confronted by 'super briefs' with learned grey curls.The first hurdle for an aspiring advocate is to learn how to conduct him or herself in the robing room.

Your comments in the robing room will establish your standing with your peers.

None of them will see you in court and all of them will judge you by your present demeanour.

Never sound keen and never confess that your shoplifting matter is the most important thing you have ever done at the Crown Court or anywhere else.You must nonchalantly pretend that the Divisional Court is even now waiting with bated breath for you to finish your pleas and directions so that it can hear your deep and intellectual submission on whether a murder can properly be construed as an offence under the dual criminality principle when it is committed on an aircraft flying from Bosnia.

When asked what you are doing at the Court of Appeal, a casual and carefully considered reply may be: 'Making law.'The second, and most difficult hurdle, is tackling traditional court-room wear.

You are still not one of the bewigged few.

Do not be tempted to wear your Uncle Bert's toupe slightly askew on your head with an elastic band around your neck.

This is not the way to win friends and influence judges.

Neither should you try to put the small hook in the front of the collar and the large hook in the back because it will reduce your advocacy skills to a low, strangulated gurgle.Now that you are all dressed up, you have somewhere to go.

It does not bode well for your future as an advocate in the criminal courts if you try desperately to sit behind the barristers who are on the front row in court-room number one.

Sooner or later, you are going to have to face it: one of the major problems that you encounter as a solicitor advocate is the lack of any available scapegoat.

Counsel has always been able to turn round and glare piercingly at the office cleaner sent by you to sit behind him.

But when you embark on life as an advocate, the back row is empty.

There is only one fall guy and you are it.When invited to have a chat in the judge's private room, do not be surprised when the judge and your fellow counsel immediately start discussing whether a particular horse is better on the flat or not.

It is not that different from the foyer of Uxbridge Magistrates' Court except that there the discussion between fellow professionals is about who scored in the last five minutes of the game.

It is not advisable to inform those present that you need the name of the informer so that your client can redesign his facial structure.

Clearly, all such information must be relevant to your defence although the fact that your client has not yet informed you of exactly what that is, is not, in itself, something that you discuss privately with the judge.When you return to open court after having discussed the elevation of a certain member of the Bar to the Bench, it is important to maintain decorum and look at your client with a stern and learned air as if you have just been sifting through dusty legal authorities and dissecting important points of evidence that are relevant and pertinent to his case.

Try hard not to open your mouth in case he smells the whisky on your breath.Cross-examination in the Crown Court is conducted at a much more gentlemanly pace than its equivalent in a magistrates' court.

When you have something to ask, do not do so directly because the jury will hear the adverse answer (it is always an adverse answer) immediately and have it ringing in their ears when they retire.

It is better first to send the jury to sleep with at least 106 introductory questions so that they do not hear that dreaded answer when the time comes to put the real question.

You can no longer laugh knowingly at the experienced magistrates' Bench.

Now you have to cope with an audience of jurors who have no idea of the 'nod, nod, wink wink' principle of summary justice.The height of criminal advocacy is your speech to the jury.

Your usual address to the local magistrates' court will not suffice: 'I know you've heard the evidence your worships, the rest is up to you,' or 'That's my bit done, now it's your turn,' or, desperately, 'I've met the defendant and he seems like a nice man.' In your new role you must make eye contact with the jury, you must engage in a rhetorical flourish of the arm and you must sound as if you mean what you say.

Second-hand car salesmen do it all the time.Do not address the jury as a group of fellow lawyers.

You may feel like saying: 'Well, I have a signed proof here that will show that he is innocent.

I know because I drafted it myself.' But it is wiser not to say so.Finally, do not refer to that last desperate character often mentioned by despairing advocates: Rumpole of the Bailey.

Everyone knows that you are not like Rumpole, so there is no need to tell them so.

After all, he wore a wig.