Advocacy in the Magistrates Court
Advocacy in the Magistrates Court
Paper
Forum 2016

The theme of this paper will be to give you a revealing, and perhaps unique insight into the pressures on Magistrate adjudicating on a guilty plea. An appreciation of these pressures will has the potentially to powerfully inform the effective presentation of your guilty plea. Highly effective advocacy in the conduct of a guilty plea requires more than merely relying upon observations of pleas conducted by other counsel, supplemented by person intuition. Because other counsel commonly make submissions in a particular way does not mean that this must be your template for submissions.  There are some matters that you would expect to be common to almost all guilty pleas but there is almost always something unique or special about your client’s matter.  Do not go into court to just 'roll your arm over'.  How do you dig out and present what is unique or special about your matter and how do you approach communicating this in what is increasingly becoming a 'fast track' guilty plea environment in the Magistrates Courts?

Bill Morris, Northside Lawyers
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