LEF funding for Advocacy Training Council

Advocacy Training Council

The Advocate’s Gateway: Vulnerable Persons’ Programme

The Advocacy Training Council (ATC) is a Council established by Council of the Inns of Court (COIC) which is the co-ordinating body of the four Inns of Court. It is a leading centre for advocacy and advocacy training worldwide; providing leadership, guidance and co-ordination in relation to the pursuit of excellence in advocacy.

The ATC draws its membership primarily from the Inns and circuits but also from the Judiciary, Employed Bar, BPTC Providers, academia, Bar Council and others. The ATC’s work centres on barriers to justice and access to justice and its current work includes research & development projects in Expert Witnesses, Ethics and also Linguistic Barriers for Advocates and The Advocate’s Gateway.

The Advocate’s Gateway, designed to improve the way that the trial process works in relation to vulnerable persons, gives free access to practical, evidence-based guidance on vulnerable witnesses and defendants. The Gateway is a project which brings together the entirety of the legal profession, communication experts, leading researchers, academics and other professionals with an interest in the area. As such, much of the work of the ATC is as a public interest platform stimulating research into issues of real and pressing public importance.

The Advocate’s Gateway aims to ensure that all advocates are effectively equipped to handle vulnerable people in court, whether they are witnesses or defendants, and whether they are vulnerable owing to youth, a mental health diagnosis or special educational needs. It provides easy access to guidance for working with people with communication needs.

The funding from LEF will enable three further toolkits for The Advocate’s Gateway to be developed: