Advocacy Techniques in Virtual Courts

East Africa Law Society, the EALS Institute and the Attorney General Alliance Africa have designed a dynamic capacity-building session targeting lawyers in the East African Community with focus on lawyering techniques in the era of virtual courtrooms.The objective of this training series is to equip the target audience with indispensable skills in today’s environment, shaped by many successive factors including the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. The session addresses the gaps in training for courtroom lawyers on virtual courtrooms. With the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, many countries shut down physical courtrooms thus compelling justice sector players to be innovative. Virtual courtrooms have not displaced the traditional trial and courtroom advocacy techniques. One has to remain alert to the traditional values of advocacy, all while sitting behind a computer tens or thousand miles away from the judge, the witness and the opposing counsel. Virtual courtrooms have immense challenges. For an advocate to remain competitive, persuasive and present in court, there are techniques that are necessary, and the training will address inadequacy in existing trainings on this area.