Litigation Skills for Lawyers: Maverick

The book is not about the theoretical aspects of advocacy. It is about practical skills and tips for everyday use in practice. Its aim is to teach the “how” rather than the “what”. Conventional legal education teaches the law student what the law is, the “this” and the “that”, the substantive and procedural rules of the law. Universities teach textbook law. Textbook knowledge tends to be superficial. It is acquired by studying. It is passive, existing in the mind. It is also random in that it depends on some arbitrary syllabus, and in general, giving the student no clear reason why a particular piece of knowledge is necessary. On the other hand, a skill, or “know-how”, is far more deep-seated knowledge, and, once acquired, tends to remain. It is acquired by “doing”, by practising the technique of the skill over and over. It is also active knowledge, demonstrated by action. With skills the emphasis is always on “doing”. If you can’t do it, you don’t have the skill; if you can do it, you have the skill. And the only way to demonstrate that you have mastered a particular skill is to do it, like riding a bicycle!
When I started this book, it was intended for use as a litigation skills guide for the practical training of aspirant advocates and attorneys at the law schools of the universities, the Practical Training Schools of the Association of Law Societies and the Advocacy Programmes of the Bar. However, as the book developed during the research and writing processes, it dawned upon me that junior practitioners also need a book that they can carry to court with them, to serve as a first or basic guide for all the steps and procedures which constitute the litigation process. I know of no other book that covers the whole process from beginning to end. I couldn’t even find a book to help me with the chapter on appellate advocacy, and as for fact analysis, the subject seems to have been largely ignored in South African legal education programmes.’