The Art of Cross-Examination

"The issue of a cause rarely depends upon a speech and is but seldom even affected by it. But there is never a cause contested, the result of which is not mainly dependent upon the skill with which the advocate conducts his cross-examination." This is the conclusion arrived at by one of England's greatest advocates at the close of a long and eventful career at the Bar. It was written some fifty years ago and at a time when oratory in public trials was at its height. It is even more true at the present time, when what was once commonly reputed a "great speech" is seldom heard in our courts, because the modern methods of practising our profession have had a tendency to discourage court oratory and the development of orators. The old-fashioned orators who were wont to "grasp the thunderbolt" are now less in favor than formerly. With our modern jurymen the arts of oratory, "law-papers on fire," as Lord Brougham's speeches used to be called, though still enjoyed as impassioned literary efforts, have become almost useless as persuasive arguments or as a "summing up" as they are now called.