The Art of the Advocate: R. v. Thatcher

• Author: Hon. Gerald N. Allbright
• Pages: 195-206

The Art of the

Advocate:

R v.

Thatcher

MR.

JUSTICE GERALD

N.

ALLBRIGHT

1991

Advocacy

is the art of the

advocate-and

every advocate

is

different.

It's

the

same with artists.

If you ask

twenty-five legitimate artists

how

they approach

a

painting, you'll

get

twenty-five

different

answers.

In

law, there

is no

area

where

the

abilities

of a

lawyer make

as

much

difference

as in

criminal defence

advocacy.

When

you get the

criminal defence,

you

don't

have

a lot to

work

with.

You

have some

facts

and you

have your creative skills. There

are

some

confines

on

advocates,

but we can

make

all the

difference,

strongly

for or

strongly against

our

cause, depending

on

what

we do.

It's

a

highly personal

matter,

so I'm not

going

to be

pretentious

and

tell everyone

how to run a

case

or how to

approach being

an

advocate. Based

on my

twenty-one years

of

experience,

I'll simply

set out my

unique view

of

advocacy.

I've

always

had a

strong aversion

to

telling

war

stories

about

trials

because

of my

fundamental philosophy

and

survival tactic:

Don't

celebrate

the

wins,

and

don't

commiserate

the

losses. Treat

them

all the

same. Whatever

the

outcome

for the

accused,

the

world keeps right

on

going

for the

advocate.

In

a

similar vein,

the

most important case

in

your career

is

whatever case

you're working

on

today.

To the

person

who I am

defending,

the

most impor-

tant

case

I

will ever

do is

this case.

In my

view

of

advocacy, defence counsel have many

tools.

They

are not

meant

to be

Machiavellian

or

manipulative,

and

they must

be

displayed with-

195