home

Critical Thinking

This topic is about how and why do we think the way that we do. Our brains formed when societies were very different from what they are now, and this leaves us with some challenges. Poor critical thinking can lead to costly professional errors (like the ones we saw in the Post Office scandal).

It is wonderful to unlock simple tools and processes which allow us to make better decisions and improve relationships around us.

I offer training on key topics such as confirmation bias, the proximity effect and attribution error. These cognitive processes, (which can all be corrected) can lead to lack of agility and strategic thinking. And they can affect relationships too. There are great tools which can really help and change lives very quickly. 

I have produced materials on critical thinking for the Home Office, which are currently available to the entire law enforcement community in the UK. I have developed eLearning on critical thinking, which I developed with an award-winning BBC journalist, and has been used for all trainees at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer for several years.

Click here to see an advert for this eLearning.

This is a hugely popular and useful topic both for individuals, and for organisations. The core concept is that our innate talents are much less important in guiding our success than we think they are. What really guides success if hard work, good feedback, and good error correction. We look in detail how this can be put into practice by individuals and by managers.

Advocacy

I have delivered a wide-ranging suite of programmes including courtroom, tribunal, and arbitration advocacy. I offer training to advocates in both civil and criminal jurisdictions.

I wrote the great majority of the Advocacy training materials for BPP University, which has been delivered over 20 years to approximately 10,000 trainee and qualified lawyers. Amal Clooney, one such alumnus, saying ‘James Welsh is particularly effective’.

I was twice invited to the faculty of the Southeast Circuit’s prestigious advocacy programme at Keble College Oxford, where I trained alongside luminaries such as Sir Sydney Kentridge and Tim Dutton KC OBE.

I train and assess candidates for the Higher Rights of Audience, and I have been a long-time assessor of CPS advocates, authorised to grade the highest level of CPS advocates. I delivered training to the CPS described as ‘in a completely different class’ (Yvonne Moreno OBE).

I have invested several years of work to create a comprehensive eLearning suite of programmes for advocacy. These will help you as practitioners, and also as students taking advocacy assessments for the SQE, the Bar Training Courses, the Bar Transfer Test, and Higher Rights Audience assessments. There is training for all the main areas of court advocacy, namely:

• Making speeches and applications
• Cross examination
• Examination-in-chief

Click here to see a video advert for this elearning

Influence and persuasion

I can help you with your presentations, speeches, and general leadership presence by understanding the cognitive processes involved with how we make decisions, and can be influenced in how we make them.

Within influence and persuasion is the current hot topic of inspiring through stories. I have delivered training (up to a 4-day long course) for private companies and government bodies where we have looked at the tools to move people and inspire people through stories.

I can also help with the structure of communication, and how to get your messages heard, and audiences on your side.

And are you using visual aids properly? Are you packing too much data onto PowerPoint slides?

If you would like help with these topics, AND you would like to improve the sound of your voice, and how you work physically, then you can get in touch to design a voice and impact coaching, using both my skills, and those of my colleague Richard Laing.

‘At Court’ experiences

My absolute favourite thing to do EVER is to work with clients who are prepared to put themselves ‘on trial’. Delegates, who are often not told what experience they are about to enter, are given roles to prosecute, defend, or judge themselves on charges which I arrange confidentially with the client in advance.

Each team has a mentor, and we work quickly towards a trial, via interviewing expert witnesses, and hearing possible settlement offers.

I won’t share who the clients are who have put themselves on trial through this process, but they have included global household name brands.

And the effect of testing their own policies in this way has led to such incredibly high energy and deep debate on the topics, that global policies have changed because of these events.

One client found such benefit in the experience that we ran the event 10 times, to include 500 leaders from 13 different countries.

If you want a truly unique challenging and wonderful leadership experience, this is one to consider. Please get in touch to discuss.