Faculty crowns first winners of Mike Jones advocacy prize

Ms Dewart and Mr Way are among the current group of Devils undertaking the Faculty’s renowned training programme, which was established in the 1990s by Mike Jones and his colleague John Sturrock QC.

Mr Jones went on to join the Bench as Lord Jones, but died in 2016 after suffering a haemorrhagic stroke. A prize in his memory for excellence in advocacy was launched last year by his family and the Faculty.

A moot competition, centred on the privacy case of Sir Cliff Richard against the BBC, was held to decide the first winners of the award, and the team of Dewart and Way emerged victorious.

The late judge’s wife, Fiona Jones, said: “Mike was passionate about excellence in advocacy.

“He devoted many, many hours of non-existent free time to preparing training sessions, and was always deeply committed to training young lawyers. He would have been so excited by this competition and the standards shown.”

The event in Court Nine of Parliament House also featured a talk, “Excellence in Advocacy”, by US attorney Tim Finnegan, who, with Mr Jones, had been part of the defenders’ legal team in the landmark 2005 Court of Session case of McTear v Imperial Tobacco. In it, damages were claimed on behalf of a smoker who died of lung cancer, but Lord Nimmo Smith found for the defenders.

Mr Finnegan said: “Excellence in advocacy can be seen as the art of persuasion…the job of the advocate is to persuade the judge or the jury to adopt the point of view of his or her client.

“I had the pleasure of working with Mike Jones on a number of cases. He had great passion for the skill and art of advocacy. He had a keen intellect. This showed in the McTear case where he was able to master not only the factual and legal issues, but also the many scientific issues.

“He was always down to earth, unassuming and unpretentious. He was very industrious, often rising at 3:30am to prepare for his day in court. He had a fascination for cutting-edge technology, and was a wiz in the use of technology. He never rambled or wasted words, and was very precise. Mike Jones was many things in his lifetime, but, foremost, he was an outstanding advocate.”