Court Craft – A Skilful Advocate in Court

PROGRAMME TYPE
Short Course
DURATION
5 full days
APPLICATION DEADLINE
17 April 2025
NEXT RUN
14 May to 20 May 2025

Overview

Presenting your case in court need not be a daunting experience.

This course equips participants with essential skills to be a confident and persuasive advocate. Participants learn through a three-pronged approach: lectures, reflections and facilitated peer sharing, and practicums.

First, a lecture-style approach is adopted to reinforce basic legal principles, legislation and legal writing which are relevant to day-to-day criminal matters handled by participants. The topics include an Overview of the Criminal Justice Process, Developing Your Case Theory, Presenting Evidence in Court, Court Craft Techniques, and Preparing and Writing Submissions.

Second, the knowledge and skill sets are then further internalized when participants reflect and share their experience during facilitated peer sharing sessions.

Third, this course includes two practicums for participants to hone their advocacy skills. During practicums, participants will put into practice what they have learnt and practicums will be conducted in a moot court, ensuring that participants get first-hand experience of a court session.

Through lectures, peer sharing and practicums, participants will discover the innate advocate in them and be a skillful advocate in court.

Learning Objectives

This course aims to convey to its participants the following learning outcomes:

  1. To provide participants with an overview of the Singapore criminal justice process;
  2. To equip participants with advocacy skills to confidently advocate in court
  3. To upskill participants to write more persuasive and convincing submissions
  4. To facilitate peer learning through discussions on topics covered during class facilitated training

Who Should Attend

Officers working in statutory boards or government agencies in Singapore involved in prosecutorial work

Pre-requisites

Participants must be existing officers working in statutory boards or government agencies who have a working knowledge of the Singapore Legal System, and relevant penal legislation and criminal procedure.

Assessment & Attendance

Mode of Assessment
Assignments & Demonstrations

Certificate of Completion
Upon successful completion of the course with at least 75% attendance and 50% pass for all assessments, participant will receive a Certificate of Completion issued by NUS Law Academy.

The 5-day workshop will be conducted in-person:

Dates  : 14 to 20 May 2025
Time   : 9:30 am to 5:30 pm
Venue : National University of Singapore (Bukit Timah Campus)

Click here to download the tentative programme schedule.

Trainers' Bio

Shuk Weng’s main area of interest is criminal law, with more than 27 years’ experience in the Legal Service Commission. She was a Deputy Public Prosecutor for 14 years and prosecuted numerous cases, including high-profile matters, before the Subordinate Courts (as it then was) and the High Court. From 2013 to 2021, Shuk Weng was appointed a judicial officer – first as an Assistant Registrar in the Supreme Court of Singapore, and then a District Judge in the State Courts, where she presided over both criminal and civil matters. After leaving the Legal Service, Shuk Weng continues to take a keen interest in the legal landscape of Singapore. She is currently a Board Member of the Strata Titles Board and an Adjunct Law Lecturer at the National University of Singapore.

Adjunct Professor Jennifer Marie graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1983. Subsequently, she obtained a Master of Laws degree from the University of London in 1990. She attended the Programme for Management Development at Harvard Business School in 2000. As the Chief Prosecutor in the Criminal Justice Division of the AGC, she guided and mentored close to 100 DPPs and reviewed all cases slated for prosecution in the High Court. She was involved actively in the training of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers and first came up with the training curriculum that has been updated and used over the years to train prosecutors.

Please click here for her full faculty profile.

Course Fee

Course Fee

S$4,360 (inclusive of 9% GST)

(A 20% discount is available for corporate registrations of 5 pax and above. Contact Megan at email: nuslawacademy@nus.edu.sg for more details.)

SkillsFuture Credit

This course is eligible for SkillsFuture Credit claim. All Singaporeans aged 25 and above can use their $500 SkillsFuture Credit and the additional S$500 SkillsFuture Credit Top-up from the government to offset part of the course fee for this programme. Applicants who wish to use the SkillsFuture Credit may refer to http://www.skillsfuture.sg/credit for more details.

Terms & Conditions

NUS Law Academy reserve the right to:

  • amend, postpone or cancel the course
  • change the course location
  • change or amend course structure or content

For postponed/ cancelled courses, the participants will be given at least one week’s notice with an option of transferring to the next course date or having a full refund of the fees. We regret that no refund will be given in any other circumstances.

SILE-CPD Points

Participants who wish to obtain CPD Points must comply strictly with the Attendance Policy set out in the CPD Guidelines. For this activity, participants are reminded to sign in on arrival and sign out at the conclusion of each day of the event in the manner required by the organiser. Participants must not be absent from each day of the event for more than 15 minutes. Participants may obtain Public CPD Points for each day of the event on which they comply strictly with the Attendance Policy. Participants who do not comply with the Attendance Policy on any particular day of the event will not be able to obtain CPD Points for that day. Please refer to http://www.sileCPDcentre.sg for more information.

SILE Accredited CPD Activity B-W (HORIZONTAL)

Public CPD Points:
Day 1 - 6.5 (TBC)
Day 2 - 6.5 (TBC)
Day 3 - 6.5 (TBC)
Day 4 - 7 (TBC)
Day 5 - 7 (TBC)
Practice Area: Crime
Training Category: Foundation

Apply Now

Click HERE to apply.

In the Online Application Portal, Please follow the navigation below to register:

Short Course/Modular Course > Applying for Myself >Browse Academic Modules/Short Courses
Select “Short Course
Type Course Title “Court Craft – A Skilful Advocate in Court
Click “Add to Cart
Login to complete application

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User Guides

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Contact Person

For enquiries, please contact Megan at email: nuslawacademy@nus.edu.sg.