Sherrard Conversation | Teaching Advocacy in Apartheid and Post-Apartheid South Africa

All members of the Inn are welcome to attend - please book a ticket

Master Ken Broun in conversation with Master Richard Wilmot-Smith

Master Broun recently wrote a piece for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy on teaching in South Africa. You can read it here: https://www.nita.org/blogs/guest-ed-may

A conversation between Master Richard Wilmot-Smith (Treasurer 2018) and Master Kenneth Broun about Master Broun’s work in advocacy teaching. Can advocacy be taught? How it is taught? What has his experience been of good advocacy. How do student and teacher learn from one another? 

This discussion will be framed by his experience of advocacy teaching to young black lawyers in South Africa from 1986 under Apartheid, and after.

The discussion will include the Rivonia Trial of Nelson Mandela (Master Broun is the author of the standard account of that trial in his book Saving Nelson Mandela OUP 2012) and will discuss President Mandela’s advocacy in his speech from the dock.

Master Kenneth Broun

As one of the original devisors of the advocacy teaching method used worldwide (referred to in England, by mis-attribution, as the ‘Hampel Method’) Master Broun’s insights would be fascinating on their own. He was one of the founders of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) and helped create the teaching method and many of NITA’s materials. He also served as director of NITA and then as a member and chair of its Board of Trustees.

He is the co-founder of the Trial Advocacy Program for the Black Lawyers Association of South Africa, a program dedicated to the training of black lawyers in South Africa in advocacy skills. He taught advocacy to black lawyers in South Africa for almost three decades.  Many of today’s prominent black judges and lawyers in South Africa were his students having had to learn under Apartheid.
 
Master Broun is also the author of Black Lawyers, White Courts: The Soul of South African Law (with a Foreword by Julius L. Chambers, the civil rights leader, lawyer and educator, and a Message from Nelson Mandela; Ohio University Press 2000), an oral history of black lawyers in South Africa.
 
He was editor of, and now contributes to, the standard work on the law of evidence in the United States. He taught for many years at, and was Dean of, the University of North Carolina Law School and has been an Honorary Bencher since 2012.

This event is for members only.

Click here to see details of the QS Requirements and how to be credited with the QS for this session

Learning Outcomes:

After this session, students should be able to:

• Understand and appreciate the pedagogical intricacies of advocacy teaching.
• Identify the challenges of teaching advocacy in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.
• Describe the many obstacles for young black lawyers and how they overcame them in their path for justice.

Links to the Professional Statement, wider workings of the Bar, administration of justice or a public interest matter

This session is of great public interest not only to lawyers/advocates, but to those who want to learn more about how black South African lawyers overcame the Byzantine system, and the government, on their path to justice. Furthermore, the opportunity to learn about the underpinnings of advocacy teaching and how to teach advocacy in a hostile environment is vital for all practitioners, no matter their level of experience. 

Click here to view the BSB's Professional Statement

If you have questions about accessibility at the Inn or if you would like to request support, please email Laura Hacon.

The Inn is committed to improving access to all its services and encourages members to get in touch with suggestions and feedback on how we can improve. If you feel your experience using the website or attending one of our events could be improved, please email Laura. Your suggestions will be treated in the strictest confidence.