The New Practitioners' programme applies to all barristers who commenced independent practice on or after 1 October 1997. This was extended on 1st October 1998 to barristers entering employed practice.

In their first three full years of practice (either from taking up tenancy or commencing a 3rd six), newly qualified practitioners are required to complete 45 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) including at least 9 hours of Advocacy Training and 3 hours of Ethics.

The Inner Temple runs its New Practitioners' Advocacy Course twice each year, in April and June.

Due to the ongoing Covid-19 situation, in 2022 the New Practitioners courses will run as a mixture of online and in-person training events, subject to government guidelines at the time. We will be returning to in-person residential weekends for the core of the Advocacy course, in April and June. As usual, the courses will be focused on handling expert witnesses, using a forensic accountancy case in April, and a medical case in June. There will be civil and criminal groups for both courses. The cost of the course will be £250, which includes accommodation and meals at the residential weekend, and transport by coach between London and Dorking for those requiring it. The dates are now confirmed as follows:

Course A

• ONLINE Case Conference session Monday 28th OR Wednesday 30th March (you will be assigned to one of these two evenings). This will be an opportunity for you to put questions to your expert in a conference setting, ahead of the residential weekend
• Residential Weekend at Wotton House, Dorking: Friday 8th April (6pm) to Sunday 10th April (1pm). The weekend will include a session on Case Analysis on the Friday evening, examination/cross-examination of expert witnesses on the Saturday and Lay witness handling/closing speeches on the Sunday, all of which will be reviewed and video-reviewed by Inner Temple's trainers using the Hampel Method of Advocacy Training.

Course B

• ONLINE Case Conference session Monday 6th OR Tuesday 7th June (you will be assigned to one of these two evenings). This will be an opportunity for you to put questions to your expert in a conference setting, ahead of the residential weekend
• Residential Weekend at Wotton House, Dorking: Friday 10th June (6pm) to Sunday 12th June (1pm). The weekend will include a session on Case Analysis on the Friday evening, examination/cross-examination of expert witnesses on the Saturday and Lay witness handling/closing speeches on the Sunday, all of which will be reviewed and video-reviewed by Inner Temple's trainers using the Hampel Method of Advocacy Training.

Please note it is not possible to mix and match between sessions from Course A and Course B - you will need to be able to attend one of  the case conference evenings and the residential weekend for the same course. The course will provide you with the full 9 advocacy hours of CPD, and 8 ‘general’ hours of CPD, which both count towards the 45 hours of CPD you need to complete in your New Practitioner period.

Our Ethics Course is run as "live" online session, chaired by established practitioners, in which ethical questions will be discussed with other NPs. There is also some background reading to be done in advance of this session, and also two short online interactive sessions, one before and one after the live session, which can be completed in your own time.

We will be offering a number of dates for the live session, as follows:

Tuesday 26 April
Wednesday 4 May
Thursday 19 May
Tuesday 24 May
Wednesday 29 June
Thursday 7 July
Tuesday 12 July
Tuesday 19 July
Monday 25 July

These will all be evening sessions, lasting approx. 1.5 hours.

NPs can attend any of the ethics sessions, regardless of which advocacy course they are on - it does not matter if you do the ethics course before or after the advocacy course. The course will provide you with the full 3 hours of Ethics CPD that you are required to complete as part of your 45 hours CPD as a New Practitioner. There is no additional charge for the Ethics course.