[3/3] Top Tips to Start the BPTC Right (and even ace it!)

For general advice and insights before you start the course, see Part 1. In Part 2, I have explained the 3 central papers on the BPTC and provided my suggestion on how you should prepare yourself for these papers early on in the course.

7. Haven't done advocacy before? Just try your best; don't try to sound like a barrister

You will have to sit for 4 compulsory, advocacy-based modules on the BPTC. These include Civil Advocacy, Examination-in-Chief, Cross-Examination and Conference Skills. I am able to give some pointers on everything apart from Conference Skills as I believe you would be better served by your lecturers and tutors for that.

Many of you would have had some experience in advocacy in law school, such as moots. If you are a seasoned mooter and have already developed your own structure when it comes to advocacy, stick to it. If you aren't, don't worry. Read your case papers and the relevant law, and try it out during your first advocacy SG. Your tutor will provide you with feedback after each session, so make sure you take particular note of it. This way, you will know where your weaknesses lie and what to work on yourself for your upcoming advocacy SGs and the assessments. Also, don't fake an accent. That being said, I have found these pointers to be useful for beginners:

Think of civil advocacy as a 'fill in the blanks' exercise. Your job is to persuade the judge why he or she should grant/dismiss an application based on the evidence and the legal test. There are written and verbal elements to this: the written element consists of preparing a skeleton argument, which should only detail your arguments as briefly as possible. Next is the oral submissions itself, where you will elaborate the points in your skeleton argument and emphasise on evidence in support / the relevant law and procedure.

As for Examination-in-Chief, your objective is to get your witness to describe his evidence as is contained in his witness statement. At the start of the course, you will be taught that you should ask 'non-leading' questions to prompt your witness to give his evidence. This simply means don't put words in your witness's mouth (e.g. 'Who were you with on 1st Sept?' instead of 'Were you with Leela on 1st Sept?'). Let him tell his story. You will craft your own questioning technique along the way; so just keep trying and listen to your tutor's feedback carefully.

Cross-examination is quite the opposite. Your objective is to discredit your opponent's witness's evidence as much as possible by pointing out things that will make his evidence less believable, such as discrepancies. This is when you ask 'leading' questions, leaving no room for the witness to save himself. Although this is where you activate your attack mode, NEVER EXPECT TO 'BREAK THE WITNESS DOWN' LIKE YOU SEE IN THE MOVIES. This was the main reason why many people tend to perform poorly in cross-examination. Your witness may very well answer 'no' to all your questions, and sometimes that cannot be helped. You will at least be able to control your witness by not fixating yourself to break him down.

8. Opinion writing:essentially like answering a problem question

You would be familiar with answering problem questions in an undergraduate law exam. Opinion Writing is essentially the same as answering a problem question, in that you will be given a set of facts in a case paper and asked to come to an answer by applying the law. The only difference is, you will express your answer in the form of an 'advice' to the solicitor who has instructed you for the dispute in question.

With the problem question analogy in mind, I find the IRAC (issue --> relevant law --> application --> conclusion) methodology to be most effective in tackling an opinion writing assessment. Here's a detailed guide on how to go about your first opinion writing homework:

Identifying the issue

In every case, you will have 'instructions' from your solicitor in the first page of your case papers. Read your instructions first. This will tell you what your solicitor wants you to address in a particular case. This way, you will be able to keep your work focused and concise.

The relevant law

You are only required to know very basic areas of substantive law. You will not be tested on some specialised areas such as aviation or competition law. Instead, it is likely that you are only expected to know Contract Law and Tort Law at first/second year level.

For in-class (SGs) opinion writing homework, you will be given a set of 'core law' (usually in a separate document from the case papers) which you are expected to address in a particular set of facts. My advice is this: get into a habit of familiarising yourself with the core law before you start writing. That way, you minimise the chance of missing something out. As for the assessment, your BPTC provider will usually provide you with the core law a week or 2 in advance, so you will have ample of time to familiarise yourself with it before the exam.

There is a possibility that not all of the core law will actually be assessed for your in-class opinion writing homework or during the exam itself. However, take the assumption that if something is contained in the core law, it is there for a reason. Double check your case papers if you think you have missed something out.

Application

Nothing different from how you would apply the law to the facts in a problem question as you had done previously in law school. But, as the facts are contained in your instructions and various documents supplied in your case paper, you should state the facts by reference to which document, and ideally, which paragraph/section. You gain marks by signposting to the examiner where you got a particular piece of information from. So, maximise all the marks you can get for signposting as long as you have time.

Conclusion

This is also no different from how you would conclude your answer to a problem question in an undergraduate law exam. The only difference is you are expressing your answer in the form of your opinion. So, instead of saying 'on the facts, Fry owed a duty of care to Leela', you should express your conclusion in a line like this: 'on the evidence presently before me, I form the opinion that Fry owed a duty of care to Leela'.

Depending on your provider, you may be asked to indicate how likely it is for the court to accept your conclusion. This can either be indicated in the form of a percentage (e.g. 70% means a good possibility) or prospect of success (e.g. 'reasonable prospect' literally means reasonably possible whether on a civil or criminal standard of proof). Ask your tutor what is their preferred style of expressing this and adopt accordingly.

9. Drafting: an art which gets better over practice

This module is all about writing 'statements of case' based on the evidence available in your case papers. Essentially, these are court documents for the claimant to support a claim (particulars of claim) or for the defendant to deny a claim (defence / defence and counterclaim). There are also more special types of statements of case (e.g. request for further information) which I will not deal with here.

Particulars of claim (POC)

Different providers will have different expectations of what you should write in a POC. But the few common things that should be included are:

- the role of the claimant and the defendant (e.g. supplying electricity);

- the relevant background story prior to the dispute;

- how the contract was formed (CONTRACT ONLY);

- the express and implied terms by reference to the relevant background story (CONTRACT ONLY);

- the breach of contract/duty of care itself;

- details of how the defendant breached the contract/duty of care;

- losses arising from the breach;

- details of the losses and the value (£);

- interests to be claimed.

Bear these in mind when you attend your first drafting lesson, and you will gradually notice this pattern in most sample POCs which goes in a flow. This should give you a head start in picking up a skill which you have never had a chance to pick up in law school previously. There is a specific style of writing in drafting a POC, but you will pick this by practising over time. You have to practise writing a POC consistently in order to get a hang of it. So, do ALL your in-class homework, and listen to your tutor's feedback along the way.

Defence and counterclaim (D&C)

Chances are, you will have to draft these 2 together as an in-class homework or during the exam. The 'Defence' aspect of the document will contain what your client admits, denies or requires the claimant to prove. The 'Counterclaim' aspect is for you to push the blame on the claimant and claim your loss from him, and this will typically be in the format of a POC.

You will not normally be required to draft a D&C until you are already familiar with how to draft a POC. Until then, learn how to draft a POC in the order I have provided above and brush up on your style of writing for this module as much as possible.

10. Have a close group of friends in your provider

It will be a long and exhausting year. You will probably ask yourself whether qualifying as a barrister is worth all that pile of homework that does not seem to decrease in volume as the weeks go by. You might even break down or lose your temper at some point. It's all normal. Having been through each of these stages for a couple of rounds throughout the year, I can personally attest to the importance of having a group of close friends in bar school to make the year much more bearable, and perhaps even a memorable one. Plus, you will have to resort to your friends at some point for help (whether in studies or something else), and vice versa.

And finally...

Looking back, it was nothing short of a tough and tumultuous year. The good thing is, you will be safe if you put in the work. These insights and advice were accumulations of my personal experience on the BPTC, which have finally been expressed by means of the English language to the extent that my vocabulary enabled me to do so. I hope that this post would be useful to you as much as it would have been to me a year ago.

Signing off,

The Inspired Wanderer

I would like to personally thank all those who have played a part in reviewing my posts prior to publication. In particular, I would like to thank Wang Sheng-En for her input on the structure and narrative for these blog posts. I would also like to thank KPUM (The United Kingdom and Ireland Malaysian Law Students' Union) for their willingness to share these posts on their platform so as to make it accessible to many more BPTC students than would otherwise be the case.