Pupillage Vacancy Information
Pump Court Tax Chambers
Pump Court Tax Chambers is the largest set of chambers specialising in revenue law, encompassing a huge range of advice and litigation – both domestic and international.
The Tax Bar
Practice at the tax bar is most similar to practice at the Chancery or Commercial/Chancery bar. Many members of Chambers act for HMRC as well as for taxpayers. Tax practice itself involves difficult statutory interpretation, a large amount of EU law (even now after leaving the EU) and a good knowledge of chancery and common law concepts (e.g. contracts, trusts, company law and land law): a tax question may depend on the operation of a trust or the interpretation of a contract, and many recent developments in restitution have occurred in tax cases argued by members of these chambers. Junior practice involves independent and led work. Most Members’ practices consist of at least 50% litigious work, and tax cases range from purely legal disputes lasting a day to multiple week witness trials. However, litigation is more likely to involve being in court every few weeks than every few days. Members appear before all levels of the judiciary. Tax questions come up not only in the context of statutory appeals to the First-tier Tribunal, but also in, for example, judicial review proceedings in the Administrative Court, disputes between businesses about the tax consequences of purchase agreements, claims for restitution in the High Court, proceedings where the Court’s intervention is needed – for instance for the variation of trusts, rectification and rescission, as well as matrimonial finance proceedings and professional negligence claims. Having a mix of clients including the Government adds breadth and dimension to our practices.
Both Ben Elliott and Sam Glover have been interviewed about practice at the revenue bar by LawCareers.Net (Interview with Ben and Interview with Sam)
You may also find the reviews by Legal Cheek and Chambers Student Guide interesting.
Pupillage
We do not expect our pupillage applicants to have any previous experience of tax law. What is required is a good general legal knowledge, as well as a facility for interpreting the often difficult statutory provisions and explaining these clearly to clients (and judges). Commercial awareness, clear thinking and a creative mind will help find practical solutions to the problems presented. Only around half our members did law degrees – a non-law degree is no barrier to success at the tax bar, particularly if it involved explaining difficult concepts clearly. If you enjoy highly technical subjects like contract, equity, restitution or EU law you are likely to enjoy tax.
We are offering pupillage to start in Autumn 2026; however, we are willing to consider, in appropriate circumstances, requests by successful candidates to defer starting.
Pump Court Tax Chambers is the largest set of chambers specialising in revenue law, encompassing a huge range of advice and litigation – both domestic and international.
The Tax Bar
Practice at the tax bar is most similar to practice at the Chancery or Commercial/Chancery bar. Many members of Chambers act for HMRC as well as for taxpayers. Tax practice itself involves difficult statutory interpretation, a large amount of EU law (even now after leaving the EU) and a good knowledge of chancery and common law concepts (e.g. contracts, trusts, company law and land law): a tax question may depend on the operation of a trust or the interpretation of a contract, and many recent developments in restitution have occurred in tax cases argued by members of these chambers. Junior practice involves independent and led work. Most Members’ practices consist of at least 50% litigious work, and tax cases range from purely legal disputes lasting a day to multiple week witness trials. However, litigation is more likely to involve being in court every few weeks than every few days. Members appear before all levels of the judiciary. Tax questions come up not only in the context of statutory appeals to the First-tier Tribunal, but also in, for example, judicial review proceedings in the Administrative Court, disputes between businesses about the tax consequences of purchase agreements, claims for restitution in the High Court, proceedings where the Court’s intervention is needed – for instance for the variation of trusts, rectification and rescission, as well as matrimonial finance proceedings and professional negligence claims. Having a mix of clients including the Government adds breadth and dimension to our practices.
Both Ben Elliott and Sam Glover have been interviewed about practice at the revenue bar by LawCareers.Net (Interview with Ben and Interview with Sam)
You may also find the reviews by Legal Cheek and Chambers Student Guide interesting.
Pupillage
We do not expect our pupillage applicants to have any previous experience of tax law. What is required is a good general legal knowledge, as well as a facility for interpreting the often difficult statutory provisions and explaining these clearly to clients (and judges). Commercial awareness, clear thinking and a creative mind will help find practical solutions to the problems presented. Only around half our members did law degrees – a non-law degree is no barrier to success at the tax bar, particularly if it involved explaining difficult concepts clearly. If you enjoy highly technical subjects like contract, equity, restitution or EU law you are likely to enjoy tax.
We are offering pupillage to start in Autumn 2026; however, we are willing to consider, in appropriate circumstances, requests by successful candidates to defer starting.
Tenancy
Chambers only offers pupillage to those we believe have the ability to make successful careers at the tax bar (and takes the expected need for junior tenants into account when deciding how many pupillages to offer in a given year). We aim to offer tenancy to all pupils who reach the relevant standard, without regard to the relative performance of any other pupils or the short-term need (or otherwise) for junior tenants at the time the tenancy decision is made. Based on the performance of our pupils in recent years, we expect to take on at least one new tenant each year. However, if both pupils met the required standard for tenancy, we would expect to offer tenancy to both.
We know how important it is to support tenants in building their practices. Our new tenants find that, alongside their own work, they are kept busy working with more senior members of chambers on advice and litigation. Our experience is that we would expect our new tenants to be earning significantly more than the pupillage award within the first year. However, we do know that cash flow can sometimes be a challenge at the beginning of your career. For that first year of tenancy, we therefore offer a cash flow scheme to ensure that you receive a monthly sum which is at least equal to the pupillage award.
Chambers only offers pupillage to those we believe have the ability to make successful careers at the tax bar (and takes the expected need for junior tenants into account when deciding how many pupillages to offer in a given year). We aim to offer tenancy to all pupils who reach the relevant standard, without regard to the relative performance of any other pupils or the short-term need (or otherwise) for junior tenants at the time the tenancy decision is made. Based on the performance of our pupils in recent years, we expect to take on at least one new tenant each year. However, if both pupils met the required standard for tenancy, we would expect to offer tenancy to both.
We know how important it is to support tenants in building their practices. Our new tenants find that, alongside their own work, they are kept busy working with more senior members of chambers on advice and litigation. Our experience is that we would expect our new tenants to be earning significantly more than the pupillage award within the first year. However, we do know that cash flow can sometimes be a challenge at the beginning of your career. For that first year of tenancy, we therefore offer a cash flow scheme to ensure that you receive a monthly sum which is at least equal to the pupillage award.
Webinars
Why would I want to do a Tax Pupillage?
A panel made up from our Members of Chambers hosted a webinar on 29th September 2022. It provided an introduction to Pump Court Tax Chambers and life at the Tax Bar, stories on how the barristers got here and information on our mini-pupillage and pupillage processes, as well as a Q&A session. The panel consisted of: Richard Vallat KC, Sadiya Choudhury, Laura Poots, Ben Elliott, Calypso Blaj and Sam Glover.
Pupillage Interview Process
A panel of our Members of Chambers hosted a webinar on 25th January 2024 with details of our first round interview and includes a technical question based on an extract from a taxing statute. This webinar works through an example from a previous year and discusses how to prepare and what we are looking for from our candidates. We hope this will help candidates perform their best on the day. A copy of the pupillage question used for the webinar is available here.
We intend to produce a new version of this webinar in January 2025.
Lincoln's Inn and Revenue Bar Association - Women and the Tax Bar
The Revenue Bar Association and Lincoln’s Inn hosted a hybrid event to encourage female applicants to the tax bar on 30 October 2023, with practising barristers, including Sadiya Choudhury speaking alongside Lady Justice Whipple and Lady Justice Falk. The event was organised by Laura Poots, who is both the RBA Diversity Officer and the Chair of the Chambers Equality & Diversity Committee. Although aimed at encouraging female applicants, the event has much to offer all applicants.
Chancery Bar Association - Women at the Chancery Bar
The Chancery Bar Association hosted an event providing insights into various parts of Chancery practice on 13 December 2022. The speakers included Zizhen Yang. A recording can be found here.
The Chancery Bar Association hosted an event providing insights into various parts of Chancery practice on 13 December 2022. The speakers included Zizhen Yang. A recording can be found here.
Contact Us
All enquiries relating to pupillages and mini-pupillages should, where possible, be made by e-mail to pupils@pumptax.com.
All enquiries relating to pupillages and mini-pupillages should, where possible, be made by e-mail to pupils@pumptax.com.
Financial and Other Support Available:
The pupillage award is up to £75,000 for 12 months. We recognise that training for the Bar is expensive and so we provide that up to £30,000 of the pupillage award may be drawn down to assist with living costs and fees etc for the academic year prior to starting pupillage. For further details, please see the Pupillage Policy on our website.
Equality Diversity and Inclusion:
We work hard to make pupillage a positive learning experience. We want to attract and support the best candidates. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all pupillage applicants and candidates for tenancy: see below for access arrangements. We are Founding Partners of Bridging the Bar, a charity committed to promotion of equal opportunities and diversity at the Bar.
Access
Chambers is committed to ensuring that everyone working in Chambers (including pupils and mini-pupils) can participate fully in Chambers life. Chambers will make reasonable adjustments where necessary.
The interview process will be conducted entirely online. While we hope that this will make the interview process accessible to all, we recognise that in some cases reasonable adjustments will be needed for virtual interviews.
Chambers is committed to ensuring that everyone working in Chambers (including pupils and mini-pupils) can participate fully in Chambers life. Chambers will make reasonable adjustments where necessary.
The interview process will be conducted entirely online. While we hope that this will make the interview process accessible to all, we recognise that in some cases reasonable adjustments will be needed for virtual interviews.
For any reasonable adjustments (including, for example, requests for extra preparation time) or special consideration (for example illness), please contact access@pumptax.com. Those monitoring this email are not involved in the interview/recruitment process and can discuss matters with you confidentially. Your request will only be raised with the interview panel with your consent and where necessary. For example, the panel would not need to know that you have been given extra time for preparation but would need to know that you have requested a break because you struggle to focus on a computer screen for the time required for the interview.
It is not anticipated that applicants will attend Chambers physically during the interview process, but for completeness the current arrangements for physical access to Chambers is covered here. To the extent that our current facilities cause access difficulties for any successful candidate, we will of course make the adjustments reasonably required to address these difficulties in advance of the commencement of pupillage (and, where relevant, make any interim adjustments reasonably required to enable a successful applicant to visit Chambers before or after accepting an offer). For the avoidance of doubt, the need for such adjustments will not be taken into account at any stage of the application process.
How to Apply
Aspiring barristers are invited to apply to chambers between Thursday 2 January 2025 and Thursday 6 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:
1. Why would you like to be a barrister specialising in tax? (200-400 words)
2. An ethical question (200-300 words guide, 400 words max)
3. A problem question (300-400 words guide, 500 words max)
The second and third questions will be made available on the application form itself.
The Problem Question requires no previous tax knowledge and the answers we are looking for are those to the questions asked rather than, for example, an answer informed by knowledge of another area of tax law.
Any Other Relevant Information
Advice on pupillage applications
We have explained our pupillage application process below, so please do read that before finalising your application. The Pupillage and How to Get It site contains some very useful general advice on applying for pupillage, written and edited by barristers and careers advisors.
Selection
We normally interview about 25 candidates. In making our initial selection for interview, we look for proven academic ability and the demonstration of excellence (which can be shown in a variety of ways), but also for some evidence of commitment to (and interest in) practice at the Bar. We do not require prior experience of studying or working in tax. We are interested in assessing candidates’ potential to develop as tax barristers, not their current level of legal or tax knowledge. However, we do expect candidates to have given sensible thought to why they might be suited to and interested in a career at the Tax Bar. We intend to give the greatest weight to the problem question.
As part of the Pupillage Gateway, we will use the Rare Contextual Recruitment System (RCRS). We will use RCRS (together with other information present on the application form) to try to ensure that we do not fail to identify excellent candidates whose CVs might otherwise not obviously reveal this. We will never use the information from RCRS to ‘mark down’ a candidate. Applicants will have the option of completing this additional form when submitting an application through the gateway. The form asks questions about their education history, whether they spent any time in care or had caring responsibilities, their asylum seeker status, and some standard socio-economic questions, including whether they had free school meals, their parent or carer’s occupation, whether they were the first in their family to go to university and whether they had to undertake paid work to support their studies.
Our first-round interviews are based on a short problem given to the candidate shortly beforehand. Typically, it will be a question of statutory interpretation with a relatively simple set of facts. This exercise is designed to test the candidate’s ability to work through statutory provisions, and to weigh the merits of different interpretations. We may also ask about the candidate's written application, but we only expect a candidate to be able to talk sensibly about what they have written: our main focus is on the problem.
Our second round (of around ten candidates) usually consists of a written exercise to be completed within a set time. We may use this exercise to test how the candidate deals with case law, including how the candidate analyses and applies relevant legal principles. Relevant cases and materials are provided: it is not intended to be an exercise in research. Written answers are anonymised before being marked by the committee, but the final decision is taken in the light of the candidates’ performances over both rounds.
Where necessary, we hold a third round of interviews, where candidates are questioned on their written answers from the second round or are set a fresh problem.
