I. Introduction

 

Although the written brief plays an important role in American

judicial advocacy, oral advocacy is at the heart of the American style

of advocacy. The reason may be found in the jury system. Juries are

used routinely both for criminal and civil cases, and it is the jury

system that has largely influenced and molded American advocacy.

 

The jury system was introduced into the United States by Great

Britain when the United States was still a colony. Following

independence in 1776, the United States maintained and even

expanded the jury system. When the jury system was in its infancy in

England, many jurors (even aristocrats in the early days) could not

read or write, so all evidence was introduced to the jury orally.1 All

documents, for example, were read to the jury. This tradition of a

virtually all oral trial has continued in the United States to the present

day.

 

Advocacy has been studied in depth in the United States because

of the jury system. A jury in Houston in 1985 awarded Pennzoil

US $10 billion against Texaco in a case arising out of the takeover of

the Getty Oil Company. That case was ultimately settled for $3

billion. In a case arising out of the 1989 oil spill of the Exxon Valdez
in Alaska, a jury awarded US $5 billion in punitive damages against