When discussing Effective Advocate Training, this Article is talking about one particular kind of advocacy: oral advocacy. It is the advocate who “assists, defends, pleads, or prosecutes for another.” The Article addresses one who understands rhetoric, “the art of speaking effectively”; that is, one who is “skill[ed] in the effective use of speech.”
Effective oral advocacy skills are of paramount importance to advocates. The lessons of effective rhetoric are as powerful now as they were in ancient times. Perhaps the simplest, yet highly effective, lesson is repetition. The repetition of a theme is powerful and persuasive. One cannot forget Dr. King’s repetition of a theme in his “I Have a Dream” speech. Professor Irving Younger inspired a generation of attorneys with his lecture on the Ten Commandments for cross-examination. Paul Simon understood this in his 1975 song “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.” An advocate can also learn from the parallel 2016 presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. That is, repetition of a theme, even with little evidence, can be very persuasive.
Rhetoric is not dead, but alive and well. For that reason, teaching and learning advocacy skills is as important now as ever. One can apply the lessons from history to address the needs of today’s advocates. Both teachers and students can now utilize effective technology, modern research about teaching, and learning theory to craft the most effective teaching and learning programs to meet the needs of each individual student.
The Effective Advocate Training Program (“EATP”) is not a distance-learning program. It is connected learning at its very best. It is a program that combines the best of time-tested, face-to-face advocacy training with the current technological tools to build on, enhance, and improve advocacy training programs. The EATP method effectively raises advocacy skills training to a higher level and brings the art of effective advocacy into the twenty-first century.
Part II of this Article begins by briefly examining the history of rhetoric as an art of persuasion with a focus on how this art continues to evolve into the twenty-first century. Part III discusses digital distraction and why new technology has changed the most effective method to teach oral advocacy. Part IV describes the EATP method and how it incorporates proven teaching and learning theories with new technology to provide an effective advocacy training program where students and teachers communicate digitally and in person.