Advantage of written arguments over Oral Arguments

Why lawyers discourage “written argument” and prefer “oral argument”

Whenever a person thinks of who is a lawyer then the perception is “a person who can argue in the court”. General public from society do not know what is evidence, cross examination, interim application etc. All they know is lawyer is a person who argues in court. Now when we tell our advocates to file “written arguments” in the court then there ego is hurt. They think we do not have trust in them or that their job is being taken away. Also since they have taken some money from us hence they want to show to us that they are doing the work hence they discourage “written argument”. But for a litigant it is of least importance whether the ego of lawyer is hurt or not. For a litigant most important thing is relief. And for a relief litigant should do the things which will get relief for him.

Advantage of written arguments

• You can be free from worry that your lawyer will miss out any point during the argument.
• It is difficult to get senior lawyer to the courts as they are always busy in some other court and keeps giving excuses and keeps taking adjournments.
• If it is an oral argument then judge normally writes down points. He himself can miss few points but written arguments are safe.
• You can add table, graphs, citations etc to make written argument very effective which is not possible in case of oral argument.
• You can add as many citations as part of the written arguments to make it effective.
• In fact there is no particular format specified for the written argument.
• You might have 10 points to be conveyed to the judge in oral arguments. In which lawyer may convey only 7 points and judge may note down only 5 points. So you may lose the vital points which you could have conveyed to the Judge.

Example 1 of a written argument

• Objection: I submit that the petition is not maintainable as petitioner and respondent are staying separately from 2004 whereas DV Act came into effect on 26^th October 2006. 
• Argument: Your honour: I would like to respectively submit that the petitioner and respondent are staying separately from 2004 whereas DV Act came into effect on 26^th October 2006. So, on this ground only it is liable to be dismissed. E.g if a person is found smoking in public place yesterday and a new law comes in to effect today then that person cannot be punished because he was found smoking yesterday because yesterday the law itself was not there.

Example 2 of a written argument

• Objection: I submit that the though the complainant has left and deserted the house of the accused in 2009 but she has filed complaint of dowry harassment only in 2010. 

• Argument: Your honour: I would like to respectively submit that the complainant and accused are staying separately from 2009. Even if we assume the allegations of the complainant that there was dowry harassment during the marriage, there is no explanation as why she kept quiet for full 1 year and filed FIR only in 2010 after 2 week after a case of RCR was filed by the accused to call back his wife. So it is clearly a case of afterthought.

Example 3 of a written argument

• Statement of petitioner from her affidavit: I am ready to come back to my husband’s house and lead matrimonial life. 

• Argument: Your honour: I would like to respectively point out to the cross examination held and recorded on 23/04/2010 wherein the petitioner had answered in negative on being asked whether she had filed any case of RCR. On the contrary when the respondent filed a case of RCR she countered it with 498A. So it is very clear that petitioner had left the company of respondent on her own and when called back refused to join matrimonial life.