Pupillage Vacancy Information
Chambers offers a pupillage award totalling £65,000, made up of £35,000 in grant and £30,000 in guaranteed earnings in second six.
Chambers will consider up to £10,000 drawdown from the pupillage grant.
Equality Diversity and Inclusion
Chambers is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, and was recently commended for ED&I in the Chambers UK Bar Awards 2022. 75% of our silks and 42% of our juniors are female; 50% of our silks and 31% of our juniors have BME backgrounds.
Applications for pupillage from individuals who are from groups that have been traditionally underrepresented at the Bar are particularly welcomed.
There is more information about chambers' approach to ED&I available on our website: https://www.5essexcourt.co.uk/join-us/equality-diversity.
5 Essex Court is committed to transparency and accessibility in the pupillage recruitment process, and we encourage you to review our report on previous application rounds available on https://www.5essexcourt.co.uk/join-us/pupillage.
How to Apply
Aspiring barristers are invited to apply to chambers between Wednesday 4 January 2023 and Wednesday 8 February 2023 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:
1. Why do you believe you will make a good barrister? (maximum characters 1200)
2. Why do you want to practise in 5 Essex Court’s core practice areas? (maximum characters 1250)
3. Apart from the types of work that we undertake, why do you want to join 5 Essex Court? (maximum characters 750)
4. Describe a time when you had to persuade someone into a course of action through oral or written advocacy. Explain what made your advocacy effective. (maximum characters 750)
5. Although we know you will have set this out elsewhere, it is helpful to have a summary of your oral and written advocacy experience, including in court/tribunals, mooting, debating, pro bono representation or examples from other employment. (maximum characters 1250)
Following a paper sift, chambers will then invite approximately 30 successful candidates to a first-round interview. Approximately ten candidates will be invited to a second-round interview. Chambers will offer two pupillages and is likely also to make two reserve offers.
About AETO and Structure of Pupillage
5 Essex Court is a leading public law set specialising in work for police forces, Government departments, and other public authorities, as well as individuals and private clients. It is top-ranked for inquests and inquiries and police law in both Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners. Our core areas of work include civil litigation, inquests and public inquiries, judicial review, employment, data protection and information law and regulatory and disciplinary work, as well as a wide variety of operational work for police forces. With four King's Counsel and 45 juniors (of whom 22 are on the Attorney General's Panels), chambers is regularly instructed in some of the most high-profile and interesting public law work, including the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry, Post Office Inquiry, Infected Blood Inquiry, Covid-19 inquiry, terrorism inquiries and inquests including London Bridge, Fishmonger's Hall, Westminster, Streatham and Manchester Arena, and cutting edge public law work such as G v G in the Supreme Court (interaction between The Hague Convention and Refugee Convention), R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police in the Court of Appeal (on automatic facial recognition) and R (Maguire) v HM Senior Coroner for Blackpool in the Supreme Court (on Article 2 in inquests).
Pupils will have three seats during pupillage to ensure they gain experience of the full range of chambers' work. Pupils will be on their feet in their second six, generally in the magistrates' courts, Crown Courts, County Courts and Coroner's Courts.
