Ace Anan Ankomah writes: PREPARING LEGAL ARGUMENTS:THE OFF-BRIEF STAGE AND ITS THREE Rs.

Perhaps the most difficult part of and greatest test in prepping arguments for court is the oft-ignored ‘off-brief’. This is the stage where, after you have set out your own arguments, you argue each point from the opposite perspective. Simply put, you draft the arguments for your opponent. That is because you need to prepare as if ‘everything that COULD go wrong, SHALL go wrong.’ So, you want to test your positions against every conceivable rebuttal.

As the leader of a team of advocates, the true test of your leadership isn’t the quality of the head (you) but the tone of the body (your team.) You and your arguments are what your team makes you, not only in doing the research and drafting your speaking notes, but by testing your arguments. But the team is often intimidated by you or would simply want to please you by deferring to you and not questioning your positions. If you continue that way, both you and your arguments are likely to crash and burn.

That is why you must encourage and promote polite, opposing views right within your team. Those views make both you and your arguments better in three potential ways:

1. REINFORCE the point: that is where the point has withstood and survived the opposing view, and has come out strengthened;

2. REPOSITION the point: where although the point is valid, it requires some tweaking or adjustment to make it stronger; and/or

3. RELINQUISH the point: you realise that what you thought was a point is really no point, and that it would serve you best to concede it or give it up.

Please make time to conduct the off-brief and be humble enough to admit when you’re wrong or where another person has a better view. Ultimately, it makes both you and your arguments better.