NSU Live: A seminar on ‘Legal Profession: Challenges and the Art of Advocacy’ was organized by the Department of Law, North South University on 9 December 2022 at the Moot Court Room of the NSU.

The event's chief guest and the keynote speaker was Justice Naima Haider, Honorable Justice, High Court Division, Supreme Court of Bangladesh. The session was chaired by NSU Law Department Chairman Prof. Md Rizwanul Islam, Ph.D.

The chair of the session, Professor Islam, started the session with his opening speech. He discussed the segmented approach toward legal practice and legal education.

He also commented that he looks forward to the speaker’s opinion on the initial struggle of young legal practitioners and how much formal academic legal education helps a student in legal practice.

Justice Haider started her speech by expressing delight at the fact that there are many girls among the student audience. She briefly discussed her struggle as a woman in the legal profession, mostly dominated by men. Next, the speaker discussed her track record of taking challenges.

She continued her speech by asking what the art of advocacy is. In her view, it’s the effective communication between the client and the lawyer first and then the lawyers take the case up to the court.

Then she explained how effective reading, effective writing, effective listening, and effective speaking are required for effective advocacy. In her view, an advocate needs to be precise. The point should be conveyed before the judge loses focus or interest in what the advocate has to say.

An advocate should be humble before the court as it is more likely to be liked by the judge. The speaker emphasized the need to be tactful with words.

The speaker continued by discussing the marshaling of facts. When a client comes to a lawyer, she/he should persuade the client to share the correct position, especially the dates of various occurrences.

Everything said between a client and advocate must be privileged communication and not disclosed to anyone. Next, the speaker discussed skeleton arguments or synopsis. In her opinion, skeleton arguments can impress a judge. A twisted fact in any direction may cost an advocate the case. An advocate should only take necessary facts and discard unimportant facts to avoid dispensable complications.

While pleading, an advocate should take a pause to give the judge time to think. Ask the judge if he wants further clarification. An advocate should wait for her/his turn to speak and not interrupt others. While lawyers contest in the courtroom, outside the courtroom, they are friends.

The duty of an Advocate is to assist the Court and in order to do so, the lawyer may prepare a synopsis so that if/she is asked a question, the lawyer can readily answer that and answer to any of the queries.

The speech was followed by a question-answer session. Ms. Sayere Nazabi Saleem, a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Law, anchored the event.

Dhaka, 11 December (campuslive24.com)//BIT