In a unique international collaboration, The Inner Temple is training lawyers, judges and law professors in Argentina to help the country implement fundamental changes to its legal system.
A major shift in the law is happening in Latin America. Legal systems are moving from inquisitorial to adversarial trials, and Argentina is at the forefront of this change. The move away from mostly written court procedures to advocates arguing their clients’ cases orally in court before a judge or jury is seen as helping to improve people’s access to justice, making the court process more transparent and increasing public participation in the legal process. However, lawyers and judges in Argentina have only been trained in the inquisitorial process, and Argentina has turned to The Inner Temple for assistance in training its legal professionals in adversarial skills.
A group of 30 Argentine Law Faculty Deans, led by the Professor Martin Bohmer of the University of Buenos Aires, sought the assistance of Master Cheryl Thomas, Director of the UCL Judicial Institute and then Dean of Education at The Inner Temple. They requested help to develop an in-country ‘capacity building’ programme. The idea was to train a core group of lawyers and judges in Argentina on how to teach oral advocacy and legal ethics skills. They could then spread these new skills throughout law schools, the legal profession and the judiciary. Master Joanna Korner agreed to co-lead the project with Master Cheryl Thomas, and they put together a team of the Inn’s highly experienced advocacy trainers including Master Grahame Aldous, Master Jill Frances and Master Scott Matthewson. The Argentina Rule of Law Project is a collaboration between UCL and The Inner Temple administered by the UCL Judicial Institute.
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The British Embassy in Buenos Aires has been instrumental in the project. During COVID-19 it funded the creation of an online Inner Temple Advocacy Train the Trainers course, hosted by UCL. The online training was so successful that two international legal pro bono organisations, ROLE UK (Rule of Law UK) and A4ID (Aid for International Development), then funded the team’s first in-person training in Buenos Aires in May 2023. At the British Embassy Residence in Buenos Aires, Masters Korner, Frances, Aldous and Thomas conducted training over five days. They ran ‘train the trainer’ sessions in the Hampel method of oral advocacy with an inaugural group of 12 Argentine lawyers, judges and law professors, as well as legal ethics training using The Inner Temple Method to a wider group of 45 Argentine lawyers and judges. The 2023 training was supported by funds from the Inn’s International Committee and UCL.
The 2023 training resulted in the creation of an Adversarial Skills Training Committee (ASTC) in Argentina, led by Professor Bohmer and the 12 trainee advocacy trainers. Almost immediately the ASTC began to receive demands from the Argentine judiciary, Ministry of Justice and other provinces in Argentina for training in British adversarial system skills. Professor Bohmer explained that “such a radical shift in our legal processes and professional roles demanded radical new ways of training. To have a tried and tested pedagogic method for training legal professionals in the adversarial process and such an impressive group of internationally qualified trainers has given our Argentine group of lawyers, judges and law professors a huge boost in confidence and enthusiasm to become advocacy and ethics trainers themselves. With the support of the UCL Judicial Institute and The Inner Temple we’ve now created an Adversarial Skills Training Committee in Argentina, and we are already receiving requests from more judges and prosecutors to be trained as soon as possible.”
In response Masters Korner, Matthewson, Frances and Thomas undertook a more extensive two-week training visit in May 2024 thanks to a substantial grant from UCL and travel funds from the Inn’s International Committee. The team provided refresher training for the new ASTC, expanded the training programme to include judicial case management, delivered new adversarial skills training in the Argentine province of Salta and worked with the ASTC to create a permanent training programme in Argentina.
The 2024 training started with a two-day refresher course in advocacy training with the ASTC at the British Embassy Residence. Since May 2023 the Committee had been meeting regularly in Buenos Aires to practise their advocacy training skills, and this produced remarkable results. All of the participants had improved significantly as trainers, with several achieving an advocacy teacher training level equivalent to the Inn’s higher New Practitioner grade. The second afternoon of advocacy teacher training was run entirely by the Argentinian trainee trainers in Spanish, with a new group of Argentine prosecutors and defenders being trained in the Hampel method. This training was delivered with confidence and authority.
The national importance of the project was made clear by the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs (Diana Mondino) and Minister of Justice (Mariano Cúneo Libarona) convening a roundtable with The Inner Temple/UCL team attended by a group of over 40 federal judges and prosecutors. The team ran sessions on the Adversarial System and Judicial Case Management, which generated considerable discussion and requests for further training.
The team then embarked on training outside of Buenos Aires in the province of Salta. The President of the Salta Supreme Court, Dra. Teresa Ovejero Cornejo, requested the team’s assistance with implementing the adversarial system at both the federal and provincial levels in Salta. The team met with the Federal Court of Appeal and the Salta Supreme Court, and then conducted a series of training sessions at the Judges Council Training Facility. This included sessions on the adversarial system, judicial case management and trial by jury. ASTC members Judge Santiago Quian Zavalia, federal prosecutor Laura Roteta and Professor Bohmer then demonstrated the Hampel method and ran a legal ethics session in Spanish with a group of over 50 judges, legal practitioners and law professors. Master Cheryl Thomas, the UK’s leading expert on juries, also met with the Salta Legislature to discuss a bill to introduce trial by jury in the province. The entire Inner Temple/UCL team met with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Salta to discuss how to implement the adversarial system in the serious cases they handle (drugs and human trafficking, money laundering and homicide).
The new Argentinian Advocacy Skills Training Committee are clear that continued input from The Inner Temple/UCL team is required to achieve the next stages of the project. The priorities include: (1) expanding the project’s judicial case management training; (2) increasing training capacity by identifying and training new trainers; (3) developing an adversarial system training course (for practitioners as well as law students) with training materials in Spanish; and (4) developing an evaluation programme for the training.
This project has given The Inner Temple a major new profile in international circles as a promoter of the rule of law. In an important step, Di Tella University Law School has agreed to serve as the ASTC’s administrative base in Buenos Aires, and the first courses in adversarial advocacy and ethics are starting in autumn 2024. A high-level policy summit is also being planned for 2025 to bring together the federal government, all 23 Argentinian provinces and other Latin American countries to share region-wide learning on the adoption of the adversarial system.
Her Excellency Judge Joanna Korner
Professor Cheryl Thomas KC (Hon Causa)
Professor of Judicial Studies
UCL Judicial Institute
