Professor Peter Lyons
Professor Peter Lyons was a specialist advocacy and dispute resolution trainer from 1995 until his premature death in June 2023. He founded CPD Training (UK) in 2005. The company is a registered and approved assessor of the Higher Rights of Audience qualification in England and Wales. It is also authorised to deliver the 4-day Basic Litigation Skills Course and Assessment to Patent Attorneys and the PSC Advocacy and Communication Skills Course to trainee solicitors.
In March 2019, Wildy’s published Peter’s book, Advocacy – A Practical Guide, which includes a foreword by Lord Pannick KC.
Peter was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Tasmania; a Visiting Lecturer at the Center for Transnational Law (CENTRAL) at the University of Cologne; and a guest lecturer at the University of Bonn (Faculty of Law).
He was admitted to practice in 1987 as a barrister and solicitor. In 1995, he became Course Leader of Nottingham Law School’s Master’s Degree in Advanced Litigation. In 1998, he and Professor Daniel Simons founded the Institute of Advocacy and Dispute Management at the College of Law. He was appointed an Associate Professor in 2000 and was made Professor of Professional Development and Head of Programmes in 2002.
For the College (now University) of Law, he designed and presented the Bar’s Public Access course, the Higher Rights programme and Diploma in Advocacy and the PSC Advocacy and Communication Skills course. He designed and taught programmes for many of the top 50 City law firms, the Financial Services Authority and the Land Registry.
Peter was also a Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde, where in 2012 he and Dame Elish Angiolini KC created Europe's first LLM in Advocacy.
Over the years, he was a regular member of the faculty of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy in America, teaching in Indianapolis, Boston and Colorado. Professor Lyons taught the week-long Solicitor Advocacy course in Northern Ireland every year between 2008 and 2022. He also taught advocacy at Queens University Belfast every January.
Although most of his work took place in London, Peter led international advocacy programmes over 40 times in cities all over the globe including Paris, Milan, Amsterdam, Prague, Barcelona, Vienna, Zurich, Oslo, Frankfurt, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Hong Kong, Singapore and Hobart, Tasmania.
He trained arbitration lawyers in advocacy for many City firms including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Skadden Arps, Eversheds Sutherland, O'Melveny and Myers, Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton, CMS and Baker Botts. He also taught global advocacy for Linklaters and Clifford Chance.
Peter Lyons, 1959-2023