Persuasion and Advocacy (LAWS90102)

Lawyers need to persuade many different audiences, including their clients, their opponents, their employers and employees, juries, the courts and others. This subject will help lawyers to persuade more effectively, through a mixture of theoretical and practical approaches. Students will read widely about advocacy, persuasion and influence, including from empirical studies and research from disciplines other than law (such as psychology). Students will also develop their practical skills in both written and oral persuasion, led by a very experienced teaching team: Noah Messing from the Yale Law School (and author of The Art of Advocacy), Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth from the Supreme Court of Victoria and experienced commercial barrister and teacher David O’Callaghan QC.

Principal topics include:

• Leading theories of persuasion, in the law and generally
• Empirical research into the persuasion of judges, other lawyers and lay people in a legal context (including juries and clients)
• Empirical research into other instances of persuasion
• Cognitive biases and how the law does—and should—react to them
• The balance between ethics and persuasiveness
• Developing a generalised theory of persuasiveness and how various actors reach various decisions
• Different ways to practically apply those theoretical approaches.