Welcome to the Keating Chambers Pupillage Website. Our aim is to tell you all we can about pupillage in Chambers.
We invite applications for pupillage starting in early September 2013. All applications are to be made through the Pupillage Portal in the 2012 spring season. All applications will be assessed on their merits in accordance with the selection criteria. For more information about the Pupillage Portal process, see the Pupillage Portal website.
Chambers will consider applications for third six pupillages on their merits in accordance with the selection critieria. Applications should be in writing and addressed to Alexander Nissen QC.
To find out more about what life is like as a pupil in Keating Chambers, see "A year in pupillage".
You are also welcome to apply to us for one of our mini-pupillages.
Funding
We offer up to three 12 month pupillages with an award for 2013 of up to £50,000. Of this, an advance of £15,000 is available in respect of BVC/BPTC fees (incurred or to be incurred).
Who Are We?
Keating Chambers is a leading commercial set specialising in construction, technology and related professional negligence disputes. These disputes often relate to high-profile projects in the UK and overseas and typically involve complex issues in the law of tort, contract and restitution. Chambers is based in modern premises outside the Temple.
In their first years of practice, tenants can expect earnings equivalent to those in other top sets of commercial chambers.
What Work Do We Do?
Our members are involved in disputes of all shapes and sizes: from residential building works to multi-million pound projects for the construction of airports, dams, power stations and bridges. Members of Chambers have been instructed on projects such as the Olympic venues, Wembley Stadium, the “Pinnacle”, the “Shard”, the “Gherkin”, the Millennium Bridge, the London Eye and the Channel Tunnel. Much of Chambers’ work now also includes rapidly developing areas such as information technology, telecommunications and energy. Some of our members are also involved in EU law. Members of Chambers act as advocates in litigation and arbitration throughout the UK.
We are often instructed to act in international hearings elsewhere in Europe and throughout Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. A number of our members specialise in international arbitration.
New and alternative methods of dispute resolution are often used and several of our members are frequently appointed as mediators, arbitrators, and adjudicators.
Chambers’ area of practice is dynamic and challenging. The relevant principles of law are constantly developing and the technical complexity of disputes requires thorough analytical skills. As leaders in the field we often find ourselves in cases that are reported in the law reports.
Members of Keating Chambers also have plenty of opportunities to engage in the academic aspects of our work and regularly publish books, articles and journals. Keating on Construction Contracts, the leading textbook in its field, is written and researched by current members of Chambers. We also contribute to Halsbury’s Laws of England and Chitty on Contracts. Members of Chambers also give regular lectures and seminars.
Who Should Apply for Pupillage?
It must be emphasised that no specialist or technical knowledge of construction or engineering is required or assumed. However, a sound understanding of the principles of contract and tort law is essential.
Save in exceptional cases, we expect applicants to have an upper second or first class degree, whether in law or not.
It is not a precondition of applying to Chambers that you have done a mini-pupillage with us. However, mini-pupillage is a very good way to familiarise yourself with us and our work. We encourage all potential applicants for pupillage to take the advantage of seeing first hand what life is like for a barrister in Keating Chambers.
Chambers assesses all applications using its own selection criteria. If you decide to apply to us for pupillage, you should bear these criteria in mind when filling out your application form.
What Will My Pupillage Involve?
Pupils are normally allocated four supervisors in the course of their 12 month pupillage. This ensures that each pupil sees a variety of work of differing levels of complexity within Chambers.
Keating Chambers is committed to providing all of its pupils with comprehensive training in the core skills required for practice in our field. To this end, pupils are encouraged to prepare drafts of pleadings, advices, letters and other documents that their supervisor or another member of Chambers is instructed to prepare. Pupils are also asked to prepare skeleton arguments for hearings. They attend conferences with clients, both in and out of Chambers and, of course, hearings in court, arbitration, adjudication and mediation.
We place a great deal of emphasis on the quality of our advocacy. To ensure that our pupils are fully prepared for practice as specialist advocates, we organise a series of exercises in which our pupils compete against each other in mock court hearings based on real cases. The exercises require careful preparation and will be conducted before a senior member of Chambers or a Judge.
In addition, our active pupillage education programme includes:
Attendance at conferences, seminars and lectures designed to introduce you to the field of construction law, the cost of which will be met by us.
The compulsory courses run by the Bar Council and the Inns of Court, the cost of which will be met by us.
Where possible, an exchange for a week with a firm of solicitors so that pupils can see how a typical construction department operates.
Feedback and Support
We understand that it is important for pupil supervisors to provide regular feedback and constructive assessment in respect of a pupil’s work. Pupillage is a learning process and it is a vital part of it that the pupil supervisor comments fully on the pupil’s work. This means more than simply handing over to the pupil the work ultimately done by the pupil supervisor. It requires careful thought and discussion to see how the pupil’s work can be improved and our pupil supervisors aim to provide this.
Feedback on a structured basis is also provided by each pupil supervisor at the end of each three month pupillage cycle. At the end of six months, a pupillage review will also be conducted by our pupillage administrators.
Welfare and Social Activities
We like our pupils to feel very much part of Chambers and they are invariably involved in Chambers’ social events. These start with “welcome drinks” for new pupils so that they can meet members of Chambers and put names to faces. We also host both a Christmas Party and a substantial Summer Garden Party to which our pupils are always invited. Other events include a Chambers’ annual go-karting event and the occasional cricket match. Occasionally there are drinks on a Friday evening, to which pupils are welcome to join us.
Pupils have their own email address and connection to Chambers’ own intranet.
All pupils have a nominated junior member of Chambers to act as their “mentor” who can offer moral and practical support to them during pupillage. Pupils can talk confidentially to their mentor about any problems they may have.
We expect pupils to take holiday during the year of pupillage.
The Future
Our pupils invariably want to apply for a tenancy. In the first instance we recruit tenants from our existing pupils and we therefore consider such applications every year. We have recruited two tenants over the last two years.
Applications for tenancy are considered as early in July as is possible. This is intended to give any unsuccessful candidates sufficient time to apply for a third six pupillage or tenancy elsewhere before the Summer break. Successful applicants will have completed their pupillage before starting work as tenants at the end of the pupillage year.
Life as a junior tenant is busy and varied. In the early years our tenants can expect to run their own cases both in the County Court and in the High Court. They will also be working with more senior members of Chambers as junior barristers in higher value disputes.
Unfortunately it is not possible to take on all our pupils as tenants. However, we do not simply leave those who have not secured a tenancy with us to fend for themselves. Unsuccessful applicants are given every reasonable assistance in making other applications for tenancy or pupillage or in choosing alternative career paths. Experience has shown that a pupillage with Keating Chambers is a marketable commodity because we are recognised as a leading set in our field. Our former pupils have secured tenancies or further pupillages in other sets of chambers. Some secure positions in leading firms of solicitors specialising in construction law and continue to instruct chambers.
Mini-Pupillage
Chambers also provides mini-pupillages.