Dear Alexandra,

I am not a specialist in socio-linguistics so I don’t want to comment further. but saying that good communication is part of using a language well is very problematic- we know for a fact that are several biases when it comes to communication in both social and legal contexts ( and especially in a courtroom context). So who decides that communication is good? We know that judging communication is subject to race , gender. class ( the list can go on) biases . Yes, there may not be priority to language skills in CLE in the way you expect because language is not considered a separate domain from the practice of law. Based on my own practical experience I do not agree that language and communication skills are not foregrounded by educators in the context of CLE – this includes the Global South. It’s a different matter how far things are implemented.

Moreover, advocacy skills are not the only skills of legal communication in question here.

I have also not argued that advocacy skills are entirely absent from legal education, but rather that language and communication skills are (a) not a priority in the theory or empirical research on CLE, based on an extensive literature review, and (b) that language skills are not necessarily foregrounded by educators, either. They could be made much more visible to students and designed much more deliberately into practice-based and clinical legal activities.

The author is wrong that advocacy skills are ignored in legal education ( perhaps this is an issue in Australian law schools). As someone in legal education I can assure you that advocacy skills are extremely important and are intertwined with substantive aspects of law along with practice- based aspects such as the audience /judges.