11KBW

Here’s the in-depth review from one insider: “The variety is phenomenal. As a junior, a typical week includes drafting the statement of facts and grounds in a JR against a central govt policy, appearing with a KC in the Court of Appeal on a commercial case, acting as sole counsel in an employment tribunal dispute about worker status, and drafting an application to intervene in a public international law dispute before the International Court of Justice. There is no other similarly-sized chambers (11KBW has around 70 members) with the same range or quality of work. Quite literally, every day is different. Most members choose to specialise in their preferred area after around six or seven years in practice, but it is perfectly possible to maintain a broad practice (e.g. employment, data protection, and public law) into silk if that is what you want. The other advantage for juniors is that the range of practice areas means that you get high-quality experience on your feet from an early stage. Junior juniors regularly appear in the employment appeal tribunal, the first-tier tribunal, the upper tribunal and the High Court.”

Over the past year, members have been involved in a number of high-profile and exciting cases. These include the headline-making Supreme Court appeal in For Women Scotland, which examined the definition of “woman” under the Equality Act 2010. John Bethell also represented the UK government in an unprecedented treaty injunction concerning the handover of the Chagos Islands. With regards to AI, Anya Proops and Raphael Hogarth acted for the Metropolitan Police on its use of live facial recognition technology on the public.

On the international stage, tenants acted for Palestine in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory proceedings regarding Israel’s obligations to provide aid. Closer to home, Tom Cross KC and Raphael Hogarth appeared in a Supreme Court case exploring the balance between privacy and free speech. Elsewhere, Christopher Knight appeared in the Court of Appeal as it dismissed Prince Harry’s challenge against the decision not to provide him with publicly funded security when visiting the UK.

The juniors at the set get in on the action too. One tells us: “On the public law side, I am frequently instructed as a junior on high-profile central government policy challenges, and I really enjoy the feeling that there is some wider significance to the work.” Considering work undertaken on their own, this junior adds: “Much of this is on a smaller scale (eg, acting for local authorities in disputes with parents about their kids’ education), but the legal issues are generally just as interesting/difficult and there is a strong public interest flavour to the work.” One newbie tells us: “A typical day for a junior involves making oral submissions in an employment tribunal unfair dismissal preliminary hearing in the morning, drafting an application to the European Court of Human Rights in the afternoon, and then working on a skeleton argument for a JR against a central government department in the evening” — doesn’t sound so bad!

The ever-growing data protection side of chambers also ties into this public interest appeal, as one junior tells us: “Something I really like about the data/info side of the chambers’ practice is that the work centres around questions of the public interest (e.g., if you’re arguing about whether information should be disclosed under FOIA or whether data processing is necessary to protect a legitimate interest under GDPR), but it is in quite a different jurisdictional context from the JR work and is, frankly, often rather better paid.” It’s safe to say that there’s a good range on offer.

Despite such big league work coming through its doors, the 63 members (including 20 silks) remain a down to earth bunch. We’re told the “atmosphere in 11KBW is superlative” and the “juniors’ WhatsApp group is the stuff of legend, with questions and answers practically every day.” One junior confides: “Colleagues are incredibly supportive, whether you go to them with an ethical query, a tricky tactical or legal call, or a life problem. I’ve never felt at a loss for who to ask when I’ve been stuck. If you get a bit snowed under and ask them to help, the clerks will step in to help you manage your workload. It’s a genuinely warm, generous and supportive culture. To give a concrete example: on the odd occasion where there’s been a lag in payment, more than once I’ve had a more senior barrister insist that I get paid before they do.

We’re told that 11KBW is a set where “doors [are] always open and people at every level are happy to chat about work issues and just about anything else”. Rest assured that “no question is too stupid not to receive a helpful answer” with a “really non-competitive atmosphere between barristers with no rancour between courtroom opponents”. One member tells us: “People regularly send ‘hive mind’ emails within chambers, asking whether anyone has come across a particularly tricky issue, or has experience of a particular jurisdiction or (more esoteric) type of hearing.” One tenant jokes, “I sometimes feel like my roommates should get all my brief fees, since my clients probably benefit from their judgement more than mine”.

What about the work-life balance of 11KBW barristers? It seems it depends on the individual. One member tells us: “I mostly work 9-5.30 four days a week. Sometimes that goes wrong, but it’s a good baseline.” Others, however, have a different experience. “I tend to do at least some work every weekend,” one junior tells us. Members comment on the expected pinch points that go with the territory of life at the bar: the increasingly tight deadlines and solicitors bypassing clerks, means it is “impossible to control the balance satisfactorily”.

We are told, however, that members support each individual’s choices, whatever they are, and clerks are especially praised for their support of barristers. One insider reveals: “Our clerking culture is amazing. I have never — literally, never — felt under pressure from the clerks to say yes to an instruction if I thought I was too busy.” Another adds that “no clerk will ever put a hearing in your diary without checking with you first” and even the most junior juniors can and do say no to any piece of work”. New tenants are encouraged to take at least a month off after the tenancy decision and 11KBW also has a new well-being policy and committee to support WLB. We’re also told that one of the baby juniors recently took three months out to go skiing!

11KBW also has a “happy” social side: “There is tea and cake every Thursday afternoon and an all-chambers lunch in one of the conference rooms every month. A small group goes to Inner Temple hall for lunch most days. Chambers also have an active social committee that organises regular trips: the last twelve months have seen dog walking sessions, go-karting, white-water rafting, and a cooking class. There are also drinks at Pegasus (the Inner Temple Bar) at the end of each court term. Chambers also hosts an annual summer party for staff, members and their families (no clients invited), and the juniors’ Christmas lunch is legendary.” Sounds like great fun! One member shares that several of their colleagues are among their very closest friends. It should also be noted, however, that “there isn’t a lot of pressure to do loads of work socialising if you don’t want to spend your whole life with your colleagues”.

In terms of the building, 11KBW is a “beautiful” grade II listed Georgian terrace with views over Temple gardens. One junior comments: “It is much better than working in a glass-and-concrete office block. The conference rooms are clean, professional, with strong air conditioning and good video conferencing facilities. The latter is very useful for remote hearings. There are also Nespresso machines dotted around the building. Nearly all the barristers’ rooms have large sash windows, meaning that the rooms are light all year round. We can decorate our room entirely as we wish, including carpets, walls, ceiling lights and bookshelves. One of the KCs recently added a wine cooler to their room. And — crucially — the heating works.” There are a few grumbles about the rooms not being “the largest at the Bar” and, while “charming”, there are some outdated features. One tenant tells us: “There is a fireplace in my room that still requires sweeping, and somehow still produces coal dust. I don’t think a fire has been lit in it for over a hundred years…”

The “extremely available and helpful” IT team are always on hand for any tech-related problems and the internet and printers are both noted as being “fast”. “I conduct all my remote hearings from the conference rooms and have yet to encounter any issues with the tech or the internet” noted one.

Those interested in undertaking pupillage at 11KBW should apply through the Pupillage Gateway. Applications will be marked, with those scoring highest being invited to an assessed mini-pupillage day. Candidates scoring highest on the mini will be invited to a final round interview. 11KBW typically offers up to five pupillages per year, with an award of £90,000.

Successful pupils will rotate between two three-month seats and one six-month seat under different supervisors, with three formal assessments to keep them on their toes. On the training, one recent pupil explains: “The training is rigorous with a real emphasis on learning through feedback sessions. These happen from the start of pupillage with your assigned supervisor. Subsequently, in the second and third three-month blocks, most feedback sessions are with the person setting the task and a second marker. Markers tend to be senior juniors and silks, so the input is very helpful. The only downside of this approach is it can be hard to cope with the volume of feedback (including differences of style and judgement) and the time lag between work completion and these sessions.” And it certainly seems that there is a lot of feedback: “Feedback is provided on every piece of work. When pupils do work that isn’t for their supervisor then it is double-marked by two barristers, both of whom provide feedback. Feedback sessions are careful and thorough, often taking a full hour. The three oral advocacy exercises are also invaluable. There’s nothing like being meticulously grilled by two (very kind and lovely) senior silks to teach you how to think on your feet. Pupillage is a steep learning curve, but you see the improvement from one piece of work to the next. By the end of the year pupils’ work is unrecognisable compared to where they started.”

Training continues beyond pupillage, especially in emerging areas of law such as data breach group claims. There is also helpful training on soft skills such as working the room, using social media, and wellbeing at the bar.

11KBW strongly encourages applications from groups that are under-represented at the Bar. As well as participating in the Bridging the Bar mini-pupillage scheme, the Bar Council’s Bar Placement Scheme, and COMBAR’s mentoring scheme, it has also established, in partnership with 39 Essex Chambers, two £30,000 scholarships specifically for Black students studying the Bar Course. Each scholarship includes mentoring throughout the Bar Course and pupillage application period, as well as a guaranteed assessed mini-pupillage at 11KBW.

When I finally got to the pupillage application process, I found it an intense but rewarding experience. Whilst different chambers approach applications differently, I found 11KBW’s approach refreshingly straightforward. When I applied there were no ‘tell us about a time when…’ questions, but instead a written application, followed by a mini-pupillage involving assessed written work and a discussion around that, and finally a panel interview during which I discussed a case I’d been sent beforehand and did a short advocacy exercise. No part of the application process required specific prior legal knowledge, so I felt it really let me focus on showing off my written and oral advocacy skills.

However, the process has slightly changed now. Applicants first complete a piece of assessed written work, and after that we have mini-pupillage days, during which there is an oral advocacy assessment based on the written work. In addition, to allow applicants to learn more about our practice areas and life at 11KBW more generally, we have talks from members of chambers, lunches, and coffee trips. Following the mini-pupillage day there is a final round interview, which will usually include an advocacy exercise and discussion of a recent case.

The pupillage experience

Whilst I was drawn to 11KBW due to the quality and range of work available, I was ultimately sold on the place during my mini-pupillage. Every person I spoke to during my mini seemed genuinely friendly and interested in chatting. Moreover, the barristers I spoke to had great work-life balances (although, of course, there are peaks and troughs in practice). After the end of my mini, I left 11KBW thinking that this was a place where I could build the kind of practice that I wanted.

In terms of the pupillage experience, the year is split into three seats (of three months, three months, and six months, although the tenancy decision is made around nine months in). Pupillage is non-practising, so you can focus exclusively on sharpening your legal skills before entering practice.

In summary, throughout the year members of chambers will give you written tasks – including skeleton arguments, pleadings, opinions, and everything else in between – which are then double marked. You then have a feedback session with your two markers, who will probe your work at the start of the session, as a sort of ‘mini advocacy exercise’, before giving you detailed written feedback. During the first seat, almost all of my work was set by my supervisor, which let me find my feet without navigating different ways of working in chambers. You get a quite lot of leeway in your first seat, and it’s fine to make mistakes, as the focus is on improving your skillset.

In addition to those written tasks, during each seat you have one formal advocacy exercise. Usually, you’ll be given a day or two to draft a skeleton argument on the case – which could be anything from a permission to appeal application, to a contractual construction problem, to an interim injunction application – and then the following day you make your submissions to two members of chambers acting as judges.

However, pupillage is not exclusively about improving your written and oral advocacy skills. Throughout pupillage you shadow your supervisors’ practices. You attend conferences and hearings with them, and through that learn all about navigating life at the Bar.

In my view, the system at 11KBW is incredibly effective at developing you as a lawyer. You will spend most of your time working on knotty legal and factual issues, and you get in-depth feedback on every piece of work from experts at the top of their game. I remember coming away from my first feedback session with about a dozen different ways to improve my skeleton argument. With that quality of feedback, you can improve at a rate of knots.

The tenancy decision is made by the Pupillage and Tenancy Committee. The Committee will look at all the feedback you’ve been given, from all of your written exercises and advocacy exercises, and make a decision based on that information (although in rare cases there can be a chambers vote). Each piece of work you do is assessed on whether it is ‘tenancy standard’, with the aim being to hit that standard fairly consistently in the few months before the tenancy decision.

The pupillage process isn’t competitive, and chambers has capacity to take on all pupils as tenants. During my year, I became close friends with my co-pupil (we now share an office), and we really helped each other through the year. In general, everyone in chambers is rooting for you to be taken on, so it really is a supportive environment.

The transition from pupil to tenant

As the tenancy decision is made after nine months, you can use the final few months to transition smoothly into tenancy. You can take time off, shadow members of chambers in kinds of hearings that you haven’t seen before, and generally sort all of the admin stuff you need to do to start practice (most importantly, choosing an office and decorating).

For me, I spent the few weeks after the tenancy decision shadowing baby juniors to the kinds of hearings that I’d be doing in early practice (e.g. an employment tribunal case management hearing, a costs hearing, and a FOIA tribunal hearing). I then took a long holiday to recharge, and used my last month of pupillage to set up my practice and begin to take on work.

When you start practice, you will have an initial meeting with your clerks to explain how things work and to discuss what kind of practice you’d like to build. Most people keep their practice quite broad for the first few years, before deciding to become more specialised, but you have complete autonomy over this. In my view, 11KBW has some of the best clerks at the Bar. You are given complete control over how you want to develop your practice, and the clerks work hard to get you the kind of work you are looking for.

When you start tenancy, you are given a guaranteed income for the first year and also a rent holiday of six months.

What is your practice like now?

At the moment my practice is pretty varied. One of the perks of practising at 11KBW is the sheer breadth of available areas, and as a junior tenant you can explore different areas to find what works for you. Broadly, the majority of my practice is public law, employment law, and information law (FOIA and data protection cases), but I also do education, procurement, sport, and inquiries. In addition to those areas, we have high quality practices in other areas including public international law, environmental law, and other areas!

As I practice across a variety of areas, no two days are the same. I have periods where I am in court the majority of the time (such as a 17-day long commercial employment trial last Autumn) and periods where I am focused on paperwork (such as assisting the Ministry of Defence draft its witness evidence for a major inquiry).

However, whilst you can have a broad practice at 11KBW, equally you can specialise early on. For example, one of my colleagues loves employment law, and has quickly specialised in that and built a great reputation in that area. Whatever approach you choose, the clerks are extremely supportive and will work hard to help you build the kind of practice you want.

One of the perks of practising at 11KBW is that you have access to high quality led and unled work. Having a balance of both allows you to develop different parts of your skillset, and ensure that you are a well-rounded barrister. As such, whilst you can get very early led experience in the High Court and appellate courts, which lets you work with senior barristers and get involved in high profile cases, you can also undertake complex and interesting cases in your own right and do your own advocacy. For example, early on in my practice I acted for the Information Commissioner in a FOIA appeal hearing against a silk (acting for the information requester), and a senior junior from chambers (acting for the public authority).

My working hours are pretty variable, although I have complete control over how much work I take on. Whilst you might have periods of working long hours (if you are in the middle of a trial or if deadlines on different cases coincide), you can balance that by taking on less work afterwards to recharge. The nature of the job is such that it’s hard to avoid weekend and evening work completely, but some people are very good at keeping it to a rarity. There is absolutely no obligation to take on so much work that it spills over into your evenings and weekends on a regular basis (or indeed to take on any particular level of work at all). You also have complete control over your holidays – for example, this year I took four weeks off over summer to visit Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

What is the culture of chambers?

I absolutely love the chambers culture. Chambers is an incredibly friendly and supportive place to practice. People are always willing to spare some time to chat over any legal question, ethical issue or other stressful situation that I’ve found myself in.

Whilst legal textbooks have lots of answers, there are lots of practical issues that just aren’t written down anywhere! I always find that if I’m doing a new type of hearing, or if I need a sounding board to discuss how a Judge might respond to my submissions, more senior colleagues in chambers are always a sure bet. I particularly remember coming out of my first employment trial and messaging four different people to thank them for their advice on various parts of the trial strategy.

It’s not only the barristers who are incredibly supportive, but also all of our clerks and other staff. The clerks in particular are great to work with and incredibly supportive, both in terms of helping you develop your practice and in making your life easier day to day.

There is also a strong chambers social life. We have a standing chambers tea or chambers lunch once a week, and there’s a committee that organises specific social events both in and out of chambers. It’s also generally pretty easy to find people to go to the pub with, of an evening, if you want to.

Top tips for those wanting to become a barrister/secure a pupillage at your chambers

During the application process, 11KBW is looking for intellectual ability, written advocacy, and oral advocacy, so the short advice is to aim to showcase those attributes! Solid grades are a prerequisite (subject to any mitigating circumstances), and anything you can do to develop your advocacy skills will help, whether that is through mooting, writing articles, or anything else. In addition, you should highlight anything through which you can show interest in 11KBW’s areas of practice.

If you have those, the key thing is to think about how you can showcase your written and oral advocacy skills throughout the application process. Try to ensure that your application is as concise as possible, think thoroughly about what every sentence in your application is supposed to do, and be prepared to argue your points at interview!