Advocacy

As its title suggests, the final chapter in this text is about advocacy. In simple everyday terms, an advocate is one who pleads the cause of another. He or she does not have to be a lawyer. In the context of the legal profession and the practice of the law, the most common image of an advocate is of one who pleads his or her client's cause before a court or tribunal. With few exceptions, an advocate carries out his or her task in a public forum. Consequently, the advocate's effectiveness and competence (or the lack of it) is on display to the client, the judge, colleagues and members of the public. Of all the tasks that lawyers undertake, advocacy is the most public and, therefore, has the potential for the greatest triumph and the greatest humiliation.