Who we are
The Advocacy Club was founded in 2007 to train articling students and junior lawyers in the arts of civil advocacy. The bio of the founder, John Hollander, can be found on the Contact page. Since 2007, it has expanded to include over a thousand participants, now including paralegals and law school students, from many law firms, government organizations, NGOs and law schools.
The Club's sessions are based on these principles:
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Collegiality, professionalism, and competence are interrelated and form the foundation for a successful career in law.
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Trainees learn more by doing than by listening to lectures.
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Junior advocates benefit greatly from networking with other like-minded professionals.
What we do
The Advocacy Club Boot Camp is the perfect introduction to civil trial advocacy for junior lawyers, paralegals, and articled/articling students who seek practical techniques for planning and conducting examinations, cross-examinations, and final argument. The Boot Camp is experiential CPD, small seminar teams led by a senior litigator, John Hollander.
How we work
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Our programs are small. Typically, we take eight or fewer participants per instructor.
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Our programs are experiential. Participants learn by doing, working from case studies based on actual cases.
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Our programs are customizable. We can mould our content, including the case study, to fit the needs of participants.
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Our programs are cost-effective. Compare our pricing to any other experiential CPD provider.
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Our instructors have all "been there and done that". Civil litigators who have pleaded in the courtroom and both taken and led boot camps.
Imagine
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You run a law office or a department where junior litigators both assist and handle cases with examinations and/or argument (whether at trial, in hearings, in discovery, in person or on Zoom).
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You have a case coming up where you need your juniors to 'game out' what they will be doing.
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From your file material, we can custom-make a case study with witness statements, exhibits and pleadings.
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Using the case study, we can train your juniors in the techniques of case analysis, examination preparation, conduct of examinations, and legal argument. Your juniors can try out their strategy under the tutelage of a senior litigator.
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If you wish, you can assign a lead counsel to observe and participate in the program.
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Participants can even docket for their applicable time (provided they don't claim CPD credits).
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If you prefer to stick to training only, we can do all the above using a case your office has already closed. This ensures your juniors gain experience in a relevant subject matter.
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Here is an example of a case study: Donoghue v. Stevenson.
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We have designed custom case studies for administrative law, arbitration and labour grievance cases. In some cases, we use examples from the case study in the Show Notes.
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Contact us using the form on the Contact & Bio tab to discuss logistics and cost.