Appellate Advocacy in an Abbreviated Setting

• Author: George D. Finlayson
• Pages: 257-265

Appellate

Advocacy

in an

This brief article

is

designed

to

give

some insights into what

is

required

of

an

advocate

in the new

regime, where

the

court

has

imposed manda-

tory

time limits

on the

argument

of

counsel.

I

anticipate that

the

reader,

upon reflecting

on

what

I

have

to

say, will recognize that

my

suggestions

propose

nothing radical and, indeed,

set out no

more than

my

observa-

tions

as to the way

successful counsel have presented argument

in the

Court

of

Appeal, certainly

from

the

outset

of my

experience.

It

is

trite

to

observe that advocacy

is the art of

persuasion.

In the

modern

setting

of the

Court

of

Appeal, that

means

making

effective

use

of

your greater knowledge

of the

specific

case

on the

court's docket

to

assist

the

panel

of

judges

to

arrive

at a

proper result: your result.

Unfor-

tunately,

too

many counsel regard their role

as

that

of

verbal gladiator

and

that

of the

court

as an

informed audience. Consequently they resent

any

intrusion

on

their

performance,

not

recognizing that

their

client's

case

is not

being judged

on

form

but on

substance. However,

the

reality

is

that

the

court

is

committed

to

time

limits

on

oral

advocacy,

and, sub-

ject

to

seeking adjustment

to the

time allotments

in the

particular case,

counsel must learn

to

live with them

and

indeed exploit them

to

their

client's advantage.

Mr.

Justice

George

D.

Finlayson,

Court

of

Appeal

for

Ontario.

257

Abbreviated

Setting

Justice

George

D.

Finlayson"