Pupillage Vacancy Information
About Harcourt: Harcourt is a thriving family law set with a rich tradition of attracting and developing the strongest emerging legal talent. It is home to six well-known family silks and two silks who are door tenants. With premises in the Temple and Oxford, Harcourt serves a wide geographical area: principally across London, the South East and the Midlands, but also further afield. This provides opportunities for a varied and progressive practice. Harcourt is recognised by the Chambers UK Bar Guide as a leading family law set and described as being “a highly skilled set of chambers that can always be trusted to handle complex matters well." The Legal 500 describes Harcourt as “…an excellent set. They have a great number of very experienced and talented barristers.” Members of Harcourt and the clerking team are routinely nominated for awards. Harcourt has a well-established reputation within the field of children law encompassing both public and private law arenas and international children’s cases. Members provide representation to parents, local authorities, extended family members, children, prospective adopters and agencies such as the Official Solicitor and the police. The strong family finance and property team undertakes matrimonial, cohabitee and civil partnership litigation. There is a growing ADR team with members of Harcourt who can offer services in arbitration, mediation, private FDRs and early neutral evaluation. Further areas of expertise include trusts, wills and inheritance disputes, divorce, nullity, Court of Protection cases, forced marriage, surrogacy domestic violence and harassment. Members of Harcourt are often instructed in cases which are reported in the law reports and by the media, and have written textbooks on pensions, contact, relocation, and adoption and contribute to leading publications, such as Butterworths Family Law Service, Jordans Family Law, Clarke Hall & Morrison on Children. Members of Harcourt include part-time deputy High Court judges, recorders, deputy district judges, tribunal judges, an assistant coroner and university lecturers. Members have sat on the national committee of the FLBA and the Bar Council. Past members of Harcourt have been appointed to the High Court and Court of Appeal. Structure of Pupillage: Harcourt’s training programme for pupils is designed to enable its pupils to meet all the competencies set out in the Professional Statement to the threshold standard for qualification as a barrister and experience all areas of family law. Pupils can expect to attend Court hearings very regularly with their pupil supervisors and then in their own right in the second six months. They will undertake written exercises, drafting and legal research. Harcourt also offers additional sessions of subject-matter, ethics and advocacy training sessions for pupils. Pupillage is divided between three supervisors in four-month periods allowing the opportunity to see different work and practice styles. Pupils will receive constructive feedback throughout their pupillage with supervisors who are committed to developing their pupil’s skills as an effective family law advocate. Supervisors will also arrange for their pupils to spend time with other members of chambers to ensure there is full exposure to a wide variety of work, including Court of Appeal and Supreme Court cases but also the types of cases pupils will encounter in their second six month practicing period. Pupils can choose to be based primarily in our London or Oxford premises for your pupillage. Further details including our pupillage policy can be found in the “Careers” section of Harcourt’s website. Financial and Other support available: Before pupillage begins, pupils are each allocated a junior member of chambers as their “buddy” to offer support as they embark on pupillage and throughout the year. As well as receiving support from their supervisors and buddies, pupils are fully included in the life of chambers and can expect to be invited to internal chambers events, events for clients and well-being initiatives.
How to Apply Aspiring barristers are invited to apply to chambers between 3 January 2024 and 7 February 2024 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? In your answer, please identify any relevant experiences or skills that you believe may help you in your career (min 200- max 250 words) 2. Why do you want to join Harcourt? In your answer, please give reasons for your choice of chambers and explain why you are interested in our areas of practice in family law (min 200- max 250 words). 3. Please give details of your advocacy and public speaking experience (min 200- max 250 words). 4. If there is anything else you would like us to know about you, please tell us here (min 200- max 250 words). |
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