Pupillage Vacancy Information
About Authorised Education and Training Organisation
Recognised nationally and internationally for its work, 4PB is one of the leading Family Law sets in the country.
Members of Chambers specialise in high-profile, cutting-edge cases in International Private Law, Financial Remedies, Public and Private Law. Members are regularly instructed in cases that are reported in law reports and the national press. They are also widely published, contributing to legal texts, writing articles and providing lectures, seminars and webinars, domestically and internationally.
As a set of Chambers, 4PB is committed to in providing a friendly, yet highly professional environment, with strong leadership and management, focused on meeting the challenges at the Bar. Chambers benefits from a superb clerking team, an expert chambers manager and a collection of highly committed support staff.
As a result of our careful, fair and open selection process, combined with our training, our growth at the junior end, in recent years, has been largely organic. Alternatively, pupils who may not have met the criteria required to be a tenant at 4PB, have all, so far, obtained tenancy or a third six placement elsewhere.
4PB combines the best of modern and traditional aspects of life at the Bar. Our move to our new offices reflects the fact that we embrace modern practices and take a forward-looking approach to the future of the Family Bar. At the same time members aim to be approachable and supportive to pupils, whilst allowing them sufficient space to demonstrate initiative and to develop as individual practitioners.
Structure of Pupillage
During pupillage, each pupil is allocated three separate supervisors, one every 4 months. Chambers aims to tailor pupillage to meet a pupil's interest whilst also ensuring that pupils receive the breadth of experience in family practice. We seek to provide pupils with experience in Private and International Law, Financial Remedies and Public Law. In addition to working with your supervisor you will work for and go to court with other members of Chambers.
As a pupil we expect you to be in court (including remote hearings) on average two to three times per week. You will take on a varied but manageable caseload in your second six months.
4PB is renowned for providing comprehensive and high-quality supervision and training, to ensure, insofar as we can, that our pupils perform to the best of their ability. We aim to make pupillage an enjoyable and practical experience, providing training from experienced pupil supervisors in all areas of Family Law.
Financial and Other Support Available
4PB offers up to 3 funded 12-month pupillages every year.
The award for 2024 is £50,000 per year, of which £10,000 will be guaranteed earnings from work done in your second six. Though it is expected your earnings will exceed the minimum guaranteed earnings.
In addition to the £50,000 paid to the successful candidate, 4PB offer a hardship bursary fund totalling £18,000 from which awards are paid and which can be apportioned to the successful candidates. This will be paid in equal lump sum payments across the pupillage year. The award of the bursary is means – tested and the amount of the award is discretionary. Applications for the bursary will be open only to those who have been offered and accepted a pupillage at 4PB and an application may be submitted upon the acceptance of an offer of pupillage
Equality Diversity and Inclusion
4PB is an equal opportunities employer and we strive to ensure that each candidate is given an equal and fair opportunity within the selection process. Chambers is committed to increasing diversity and inclusion. We aim to be proactive in our approach to recruitment.
Chambers aims to ensure that the selection process for pupils is sensitive to conscious and unconscious bias. Those responsible for selecting pupils undertake training to ensure that the approach we take is fair and as free as possible from misconceptions, misapprehensions and prejudice. We do not want invisible barriers to be erected to those from the BAME communities, who are LGBTQ+ or classified as disabled. Chambers is proud of its association with “Bridging the Bar”, where we house the co-chair of the Bar Council’s Race Working Group and the chair of the Middle Temple LGBTQ+ forum.
Chambers has committed to anti-racist practice and has commissioned training to pursue this agenda. In addition, there is regular chambers-wide training on how disability legislation should inform the approach to the distribution of work, recruitment and client care.
Chambers also takes pride in the outreach work that its members undertake to ensure that as diverse a cohort of applicants as possible is willing to apply to chambers. We know that we cannot be complacent. We want our chambers to reflect our values and we want it to be known that we encourage applications from BAME applicants, people with disabilities and in protected categories, those from the LGBTQ+ community and diverse and under-represented backgrounds.
Cleo Perry KC is the Equality and Diversity responsible for our pupils.
Please contact pupillage@4pb.com should you wish to make an enquiry about accessibility at 4PB.
How to Apply
Our recruitment process begins with the Pupillage Gateway application form, a comprehensive sifting process, followed by a careful selection and interview process which takes place between February and April 2025.
Aspiring barristers are invited to apply to chambers between 2nd January 2025 and 6th February 2025 using the Pupillage Gateway application system to search for the relevant Pupillage Vacancy and selecting ‘Apply for this pupillage’.
In addition to the standardised Bar Council questionnaire, candidates will be asked to respond to the following questions from Chambers:
Candidates will be asked to respond to the following questions from Chambers:
- Which skills and characteristics are the hallmarks of a good advocate, and which of these do you and don't you possess? (200 words).
- What is the greatest challenge you have faced so far in pursuing a career at the bar? (200 words).
- Arbitration is not so much an example of alternative dispute resolution as the hallmark of a two tier system. (200 words).
