Pupillage Vacancy Information
You will receive a salary, and all of the benefits of employment, including paid annual leave, access to a pension scheme and health care scheme and more.
Equality Diversity and Inclusion
We are committed to promoting and fostering equality, diversity and inclusivity in all aspects of our work and employment. Further details are available on our website here.
How to Apply
Applications should be made using our Pupillage Application Form available on the Careers section of our website at www.richmondchambers.com. The form must be completed electronically and emailed to our HR Manager, Nancy Holland at nancy.holland@richmondchambers.com by 31st March 2023, along with any correspondence from the BSB confirming any dispensations from pupillage. We will not accept hard copy applications or consider any other material provided. Applicants are advised to read the guidance note and our selection criteria carefully.
This pupillage is offered in addition to those already advertised on the Gateway. If you have already applied to us in the 2023 Gateway and now wish to also apply for the June 2023 pupillage, please submit another application form for this pupillage. You are welcome to duplicate information provided previously.
Interviews for this pupillage will be held alongside the Gateway interviews in April 2023, and the offer will be made at the same time as Gateway offers on 5th May 2023. Those invited for further assessment and interview will only be asked to undergo the assessment process and interview once.
We will acknowledge all applications and write to each applicant after the closing date to inform them of whether their application has progressed through to the next stage, or whether their application was unsuccessful. Due to the high number of applications likely to be received, we will be unable to provide feedback on unsuccessful applications. Any applicant that reaches the interview and assessment stages will have the opportunity to attend a feedback session with one of our recruitment panel members.
About AETO and Structure of Pupillage
Richmond Chambers is a multi-award winning partnership of specialist immigration barristers. Based in the heart of Covent Garden, we’re a barrister-only immigration law practice, combining the expertise and quality of the Bar, with the service levels and benefits package of a boutique law firm.
Authorised by the SRA as the UK’s first barrister-led ABS in July 2013, we are now entering our 10th year of practice.
Each pupillage is an employed pupillage, full time and for twelve months. During the twelve months each pupil will be allocated to one or more pupil supervisors, but our pupils also have regular opportunities to work for other members of Chambers.
Pupils see a wide range of private client immigration law work including applications, appeals and judicial reviews involving partner and family migration, short stay migration, long term and short term work routes, business visas, the global business mobility route, global talent visas, investment migration, student visas, the EU Settlement Scheme, settlement, nationality and asylum and human rights law. Our focus on direct access work means that pupils can expect daily client contact.
The pupillage year is structured into two six month periods. The first six months are spent collaborating on a wide range of applications and appeals across all areas of personal and business immigration law, often involving complex and novel points of law. In the second six months, learning through experience continues, but the reputation of Richmond Chambers is such that our pupils can also expect to be briefed by both solicitors and members of the public in their own right.
We are committed to providing our pupils with high quality, relevant training. Our barristers provide regular feedback to our pupils in relation to all work undertaken under their supervision and we hold monthly in-house advocacy training. We also go beyond the Bar Council’s training requirements and provide the additional training that we deem necessary for a successful direct access practice.
We believe that pupillage should be about learning and gaining experience. Richmond Chambers’ pupils are not required to undertake any competitive advocacy exercises or complete any formal assessments. Nor do we require our pupils to compete against each other. We evaluate each person individually based on merit.
We are committed to recruiting new members from our pupils, after evaluation against our standards of excellence. Our recruitment and training processes are such that in the last 3 years all pupils have been offered and accepted membership of chambers at the end of their pupillage. We continue to support our new members in the early years of practice.
For more information about who we are, what we do, life as a pupil and after pupillage please visit the Careers section of our website at www.richmondchambers.com.