Pupillage Vacancy Information
Erskine offers up to two 12-month pupillages each year, each carrying an award of £75,000 (a scholarship of £45,000 for the first six months, and £30,000 for the second six).
Up to £20,000 of the award for the first six months may be drawn down prior to commencing pupillage.
Chambers will also cover the cost of any compulsory courses during pupillage, and offers a generous rent and expense-free period to support junior tenants as they start in practice.
Travel expenses are offered for any pupillage candidate invited to interview.
Equality Diversity and Inclusion
Erskine Chambers is committed to the highest standards of equality, diversity and inclusion both in relation to pupillage and practice. We have detailed policies in place to support these aims, which are available on request from Philip Morrison, our acting Accessibility Officer.
These policies are incorporated into our pupillage programme, for selection and treatment of pupils. Our commitments fall into the following categories:
(a) Widening the pool. We endeavour to select the candidates who will be the best barristers, from whatever background they may come, and encourage applications from as diverse a group of applicants as possible. If the personal circumstances of a prospective pupil mean that the pupil has not had the same opportunities as another candidate, that will be taken into account in assessing the applications.
(b) Selecting the best applicants. Our selection criteria and the selection process are clearly set out in our pupillage policy. Our paper sift is carried out by the Head of the Pupillage Committee and a more junior barrister, independently of one another. Interviews are conducted by as broad a panel of members as possible, across two rounds. Problem questions for interview are set so that no matter how much academic law a candidate has studied, they are unlikely to have encountered the problem before. This levels the playing field between candidates. We ensure that everyone involved in the selection process has been trained in fair recruitment whether formally or, at a minimum and so as to maximise the number of barristers available to conduct interviews, by engagement with the Bar Council’s fair recruitment guidance.
(c) Training to the highest standards. We are a specialist set and we take pupils from a wide variety of law and non-law backgrounds. Some of the law students or qualified lawyers who do pupillage with us will have academic or practical experience of company and insolvency law. But there are aspects of our specialist work which, by their nature, even the most experienced student will not have encountered before. This is even more applicable to non-law students who have come to the Bar via a conversion course or any other route which has not involved academic or practical exposure to our specialist areas. What we do to get our pupils ready to practice in our chosen area depends on the pupil. We have a recommended reading list of inexpensive, student-level textbooks which we suggest pupils study in the 18 months between a pupillage offer and starting pupillage (Gower on Companies, Goode on Principles of Corporate Insolvency Law, and perhaps a book on corporate finance or other books depending on the particular experience of the pupil). We are happy to assist pupils during this pre-pupillage phase and try to keep in touch with them on a regular basis. Then, when the pupils start in chambers, the first three months leading up to Christmas are consciously a law-learning process. The pupil supervisors for these seats are chosen to be able to give the closest support to the pupils as they learn the law in our specialist areas. We have supervisors who have taught our specialist areas at university level, and other supervisors whose practices are broad enough to ensure that pupils obtain a thorough grounding in as much of our specialist work as possible. Supervisor selection is overseen by the head of the Pupillage Committee to ensure that this first phase is carefully and successfully managed. The learning process is tailored to the pupils we have. We are not prescriptive, and the policy is one of flexibility. The proof of the high standards is in the outcomes we achieve. Most of our pupils are taken on at Erskine Chambers and have successful careers as company law barristers. Those pupils who are not taken on have generally gone on to establish successful careers at other high-profile sets.
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. Please explain why you are interested in pursuing a career at the Bar in the field of company law. (Maximum character limit 1500)
2. Please provide us with any additional information that you consider relevant to your application. (Maximum character limit 1500)
About AETO and Structure of Pupillage
Erskine Chambers is widely recognised as the leading specialist company law set. We have particular expertise in litigation and advisory work in the fields of company law, restructuring and insolvency, financial services and commercial dispute resolution. Much of our work is international and members regularly carry out work involving the Channel Islands, Cayman, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States.
We consider candidates with both law and non-law degrees. Approximately half of our recent junior tenants did not read law at university. It is not a prerequisite to have studied company or insolvency law, although candidates who are able to demonstrate some interest in Chambers’ core practice areas are preferred. Amongst our members of Chambers we have individuals who have transferred from other professions, including former academics and solicitors.
We offer up to two pupillages each year. We have designed our pupillage to provide both an introduction to Erskine’s specialist areas and some more general training for commercial/chancery work. Pupils generally sit with four pupil supervisors during the course of the year, and pupil supervisors are selected to ensure that pupils have an opportunity to gain experience in all of Chambers’ core practice areas.
Chambers will reimburse interview candidates’ reasonable travelling expenses.
Any Other Relevant Information
Please also see our website for further information about pupillage at Erskine, including a pupil's view of their time with us: https://www.erskinechambers.com/pupillage/
