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An object model for use in oral and written advocacy

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Abstract

This paper describes the author’s development and use of a diagramming model in preparing a legal case for which he was responsible. He combined Wigmorean analysis and object oriented techniques in order to model arguments based on generalisations taken from the real world and from legal precedent. The paper addresses the modelling issues, but in particular identifies the very real benefits that affected the way the case was conducted. Those areas in which the model came into its own were principally the structuring of evidence, the preparation for the cross-examination of witnesses, and ensuring a consistent approach from picking up the case to making the closing submissions.

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Notes

  1. Barlow v Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow Ltd (2006), 2305718/2004. Although the hearing was held in public and the judgment is in the public domain, the names of the individual participants in the case, other than the Claimant, have been withheld out of a respect for their privacy.

  2. n2 supra, Reasons of the Tribunal, para 4.4.

  3. The claim for wrongful dismissal was a contractual common law claim, which in this case related principally to payment in lieu of the Claimant’s notice. Wrongful dismissal depends on the employer having breached the employee’s contract, causing loss.

  4. ERA 1996, s98(4).

  5. Iceland v Frozen Foods Ltd [1982] IRLR 439 confirmed by Sainsbury’s Supermarkets v Hitt [2003] IRLR 23.

  6. British Home Stores v Burchell [1980] ICR 383.

  7. Closing Submissions for Claimant, para 12.

  8. There are analogies with the dire effects on the narrator of the eponymous joke in Milan Kundera’s novel, although his intention (in sending the postcard, which began ‘Optimism is the opium of the people!”) was to shock rather than to amuse its recipient.

  9. The bundle is the term used in the English courts for the collection of documents that comprises the evidence in the case.

  10. (1901) 177 Mass. 582.

  11. The model in its original form was drawn up on sheets of A3 paper, which were then stuck up on the walls of a small study to provide a visual overview of the case.

  12. By way of example, the following abbreviations are used: B (Bundle), C (Claimant), R (Respondent), S (Submissions), W (Witness).

  13. n8 supra, para 12.

  14. n3 supra, para 6.4.

  15. The closing submissions normally refer thus to the Bundle, A1 being Appendix 1.

  16. n3 supra, para 6.6.

  17. [2004] EWCA Civ 402, para 38, its particular relevance being that the appellant had also been summarily dismissed for gross misconduct.

  18. n3 supra, para 6.9.

  19. n8 supra, para 24.

  20. n2 supra, para 6.9.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the following: the editor of this issue, Katie Atkinson, for her assistance and comments; Trevor Bench-Capon, for his helpful suggestions and amendments; and the anonymous reviewers for their reviews of the first submitted draft. He was greatly assisted in his work of representing the Claimant by the resources of the Free Representation Unit, and is particularly grateful for the advice provided by Michael Reed, its specialist in employment law.

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    Charles Unwin

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Correspondence to Charles Unwin.

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Unwin, C. An object model for use in oral and written advocacy. Artif Intell Law 16, 389–402 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-008-9071-7

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