| 
 DO
YOU WANT TO BE AN ADVOCATE?
IS THIS YOU?
- Are you an independent thinker?
- Are you a confident and fluent speaker?
- Do you like using language both to speak
and to write?
- Do your friends choose you to speak up for
them?
- Do you like to analyse problems and work
out solutions?
- Do you remain in control of yourself when
you are angry?
- Are you not easily intimidated?
- Do you believe the strong should protect
the weak?
MAYBE YOU SHOULD BECOME AN ADVOCATE?
WHAT ARE LAWYERS,
ATTORNEYS AND ADVOCATES?
- All who earn their living engaged in practicing
the law are called lawyers, including Judges, Magistrates, advocates,
attorneys, and university lecturers.
- There are two main branches of legal practitioners:
attorneys, who do legal work of all kinds, and advocates, who
are specialists.
- Attorneys are the business managers of cases
and they decide when an advocate is or is not necessary to be
engaged to act for the clients. Advocates have no direct contact
with clients. For this reason advocates are said to be in a “referral”
profession.
- Attorneys are the lawyers that clients see
first with their problems. Attorneys give general advice in the
law.
- Advocates (also called “counsel”)
get “briefed” to take on cases by attorneys when a
specialist skill is needed in a court case or in research into
the law.
- Attorneys form professional companies and
firms and practice in partnership with each other. Advocates are
individuals practitioners and never form partnerships. Advocates
may become members of “the Bar”.
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WHAT IS THE BAR?
- The “Bar is the name traditionally
used for Societies of Advocates. \
- There are ten Bars affiliated to the
General Council of the Bar of South Africa. Each Bar is an independent
association governed by an elected Bar Council.
- Codes of ethical conduct apply to every
person who joins the Bar and these are enforced by the Bar
Council.
An advocate who transgresses the law or the code of conduct may
be expelled from the profession by way of an application to the
High Court.
- The codes regulate the ethical handling
of a case, duties to the court, to attorneys, to clients and to
other advocates, and the charging of fees which must be reasonable
having regard to the financial capacity of the client and the
complexity of the case.
- Advocates who join the Bar “keep
chambers” together in “sets of chambers” where
they enjoy a collegial professional life.
- Membership of the Bar offers the opportunity
both to learn from experienced advocates, and in turn as an experienced
advocate to pass on skills to newcomers; in this sense, the Bar
is the training ground for new advocates.
- Advocates are required to practice
from chambers, and clients and attorneys usually call there to
consult.
- The most important value of the profession
of advocacy is its uncompromising independence.
- Advocates adhere to a “cab rank”
rule which means that any person no matter how grievous a crime
they are accused of, how poor or rich they may be or however unpopular
they may be politically, is entitled to the services of an advocate,
and it is unethical for an advocate who is available to take a
case to refuse to do so because the advocate disapproves of the
person's acts or behaviour.
- The Bar is committed to certain values
set out in its vision statement.
- The Bar identifies itself fully
with the ideals, aspirations and challenges presented by the
new democratic South Africa.
- As a body of independent practitioners,
the Bar is committed to providing specialised legal representation,
at fair fees, to all persons who require such services.
- By providing this representation,
as well as facilities for the protection of human rights,
access to justice for indigent persons and alternative dispute
resolution, the Bar serves all the people of South Africa.
- We shall continue to strive towards
the attainment of justice for all according to the Rule of
Law and to support reforms designed to achieve this goal.
- The Bar is committed to:
- The maintenance of an independent
judiciary.
- Ensuring that the Bar is representative
of all sections of the South African population.
- Providing greater access to justice
by the expansion of legal services to all who require them
whilst maintaining the high standard, professional integrity
and independence which are established hallmarks of the Bar.
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FROM WHERE DO
ADVOCATES GET WORK?
- Save for certain specific exceptions
Advocates do not receive “briefs”
directly from clients, and thus all their work is “referred”
to them by other lawyers.
- Private sector practicing firms of
attorneys “brief” advocates on a case by case basis
to do work.
- The State Attorney, who represents
Government Departments also “briefs” advocates in
a similar way.
- The Legal Aid Board provides financial
assistance to poor people who would not otherwise afford an attorney
or an advocate, and sometimes with and sometimes without collaboration
with private sector attorneys, the Legal Aid Board instructs advocates
to do work.
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WHAT EXACTLY
IS THE WORK THAT AN ADVOCATE DOES?
An advocate, as a specialist in courtcraft
and legal opinions:
- Uses verbal and writing skills to understand,
to explain and to persuade.
- Reads many documents and digests a
lot of factual information.
- Researches the law in books and on
computer databases.
- Uses listening skills to digest the
stories told by clients in a consultation and to the evidence
given by witnesses in court.
- Diagnoses from the facts and the law
what exactly is the question to be decided.
- Drafts “pleadings” which
state in very careful terms what the issues are that the court
or the arbitrator must decide.
- Gives advice on problems and explains
difficult choices to attorneys and to clients in “opinions”.
- Negotiates with colleagues over the
settlement or the conduct of cases.
- Guides witnesses to give their evidence
by asking questions and tests the truth and value of the evidence
given by witnesses by cross-questioning them.
- Drafts “arguments” setting
out the facts and law relevant to the decisions to be decided.
- Argues a case for a client to persuade
a Judge or Magistrate or Arbitrator.
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WHAT ARE THE
WORKING CONDITIONS OF AN ADVOCATE?
- Attorneys who brief advocates to take
on a case, work with advocates on the case, together with the
client and witnesses.
- Advocates work long hours, often at
night and on the weekends.
- Advocates often work under the pressure
of urgency and have to make quick decisions.
- Advocates must resist intimidation
from opponents, and from Judges, Magistrates and Arbitrators.
- Advocates must guard against being
emotionally distressed by the problems of their clients so that
they can be of real help in time of need.
- Advocates must make strategic decisions
and hard choices and take responsibility for the fate of those
whom they represent.
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WHERE DO ADVOCATES
APPEAR TO REPRESENT THEIR CLIENTS?
- The Constitutional Court in Johannesburg
- Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
- The High Courts in the large cities
and towns of South Africa.
- The Magistrate's Courts in every district
of South Africa.
- The Land Claims Court in Johannesburg.
- The Labour Court of South Africa, in
the large cities of South Africa.
- Arbitrations by the Commission for
Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in the large cities
and towns.
- Specialist superior courts dealing
with income tax, water affairs, patents and trademarks, unfair
competition and other tribunals.
- Private arbitrations.
- South African advocates often appear
in the courts of Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
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ONCE I HAVE GRADUATED
WHERE DO I GET TRAINING TO PREPARE ME TO PRACTISE AS AN ADVOCATE?
- A person who wants to practice as a
lawyer, either as an attorney or an advocate, must undergo one
year of vocational training before being permitted to practice
as an independent professional lawyer.
- Professional training to become an
advocate is provided by the constituent “Societies of Advocates”
of the General
Council of the Bar of South Africa.
- Pupillage, beginning on 15 January
and ending 31 December, including an examination is a prerequisite
to join the Bar.
- During pupillage a pupil advocate will
be paired with an experienced advocate to see firsthand how real
work is carried out in chambers and in the courts. Pupillage is
a learning experience, not a job, and is unpaid.
- Pupillage consists of practical courtcraft,
legal document drafting skills and procedural law.
- At some Bars lectures on practice are
given.
- Information regarding pupillage at the KZN
Bar is available on this site.
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WHAT IS THE CAREER PATH
OF AN ADVOCATE?
- To become an advocate you must be “admitted”
to the Roll of Advocates, a statutory register kept by the official
of the High Court.
- You must apply to the High Court, on
affidavit, stating that you are honest, have not committed any
criminal offences, have an LLB degree and are “fit and proper”
to be an advocate.
- You must appear before the High Court
to promise to uphold the Constitution, after which you may call
yourself an advocate.
- Members of the Bar are traditionally
called junior counsel or senior counsel (“silk”).
- Silks usually appear with a junior
counsel in large or difficult cases.
- A “silk” is an advocate
of proven experience and skill, who after at least ten years of
practice is appointed by the President of South Africa as a “senior
consultus” (SC). Each year the Bar
Councils make recommendations
about who should be appointed as silk.
- A senior consultus traditionally wears
a silk robe, different from those worn by junior counsel, and
is for that reason called a “silk”. Silks are the
leaders of the profession.
- Although all practicing and academic
lawyers are eligible to be appointed as Judges, most Judges appointed
by the Judicial Services Commission are advocates because of their
experience in the arts of courtcraft.
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WHAT KEY COMPETENCIES
DO I NEED TO BE A SUCCESS AS AN ADVOCATE?
- Confidence in yourself.
- Excellent verbal skills, both oral and written,
especially in the English language. Fluency in the other South
African languages is a great advantage.
- Excellent listening skills.
- The capacity to concentrate to read voluminous
documents.
- The ability to extract from facts presented
what is relevant and important.
- A thorough understanding of how to use a
law library and computer based research tools.
- A high work ethic to cope with long hours
and painstaking preparation.
- A high sense of responsibility and accountability.
- Uncompromising personal ethical standards.
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WHERE DO I FIND OUT
MORE ABOUT THE BAR?
Apart from the KwaZulu-Natal Bar, the constituent Bars of the General
Council of The Bar are:
- The Bisho Bar, Bisho .
- The Cape Bar, Cape Town.
- The Eastern Cape Bar, Grahamstown and Port
Elizabeth.
- The Free State Bar, Bloemfontein.
- The Johannesburg Bar, Johannesburg. www.johannesburgbar.co.za
- The North West Bar, Mafeking.
- The Northern Cape Bar, Kimberly.
- The Pretoria Bar, Pretoria. www.pretoriabar.co.za
- The Transkei Bar, Umtata.
The General
Council
of the Bar publishes a journal,
“Advocate”.
Subscription enquiries to Jutalaw.cserve@Juta.co.za; or P.O. Box
24299, Landsdowne 7779
The following books provide information on the
profession of advocacy and the work that advocates do:
- The Law of South Africa Volume 14 –
Butterworths.
- Litigation skills for South African lawyers
– C G Marnewick, Butterworths.
- Morris' Technique in Litigation, (4th
ed) H Daniels, Juta.
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WHAT QUALIFICATIONS
DO I NEED TO BECOME AN ADVOCATE?
- Either a four year LLB or a three year undergraduate
degree (BA, BCOM, or a BSC) plus a two year LLB from any South
African university.
- Some Universities require matriculants
to have “points” to gain admission to the Faculty
of Law. A list of law faculties in South Africa is given at www.universities.co.za
where this information can be obtained.
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