Pupillage Vacancy Information
Serle Court is a leading, award-winning set of barristers’ chambers, renowned for its expertise across the range of commercial chancery work. Described by Chambers & Partners as "a really top set home to some of the best people in the industry", we handle complex, high-value matters for private and professional clients in the UK and internationally.
Our barristers advise across all areas of business law, from offshore litigation involving global corporations to domestic advisory work. We are widely recognised as “the market leader for offshore trust litigation” and praised by The Legal 500 as “a stellar set” with “great strength in depth at all levels.” With 87 barristers, including 30 silks, our members regularly appear in The Lawyer’s Top 20 cases and in courts around the world. We were highly commended in the Chambers of the Year category at The Lawyer Awards 2025, shortlisted in six categories at the Legal 500 UK Bar Awards 2025, and named Chancery Set of the Year by Legal 500 for two consecutive years. We are also shortlisted for Chancery Set of the Year at the Chambers UK Bar Awards 2025.
Our pupillage programme offers invaluable exposure to complex cases, hands-on experience, and close supervision from leading practitioners, all within a supportive and inclusive environment.
About Serle Court
We believe that a pupillage at Serle Court provides the best possible foundation for commercial chancery practice: 12 months spent working with leaders in the field on cases across the spectrum of business law, in a warm and supportive environment, with a real prospect of tenancy.
Serle Court looks for highly motivated individuals with outstanding analytical ability, a practical approach, sound judgment, an ability to develop good client relationships and the potential to become an excellent advocate. Serle Court has a reputation for ‘consistent high quality’ and members who are ‘highly intelligent, user-friendly, approachable and supportive’ and seeks these characteristics in its pupils.
Pupils are encouraged to help and support one another as future colleagues in tenancy. Although we provide advocacy training for our pupils, we do not require them to undertake competitive advocacy exercises against each other or to complete the same set-pieces of work. Pupils are not competing against one another, but are evaluated on their own merits.
Structure of Pupillage
Each pupil is assigned to 4 supervisors, each with a different area of practice, in the course of the year. They are able to indicate an area of interest for their 4th seat. Pupils spend the whole of the 12-month period of pupillage shadowing members of chambers, rather than taking on work in their own name in the practising period, to ensure they are as well qualified as they can be for starting in practice on their own account. Pupils may get an opportunity to undertake their own advocacy once or twice towards the end of the practising period, but we ensure that advocacy exercises, conducted in front of a senior member of chambers, and other assessments designed to improve practical skills, take place. Supervisors provide frequent feedback and monitor their pupils’ progress to ensure that the work they are given fulfils their training needs.
We strive to make pupils feel a part of chambers from the time that they accept their offers of pupillage. They are invited to chambers events, both formal and informal, and encouraged to get to know both members and staff.
Financial and Other Support Available
The Serle Court Pupillage Award is £85,000, and up to £25,000 of that can be drawn down during the preceding year, in addition to any Inns scholarship you may receive. A Pupillage Award is tax-free in respect of the first six months, making the post-tax value of the Pupillage Award substantially higher than an equivalent salary.
Equality Diversity and Inclusion
We are strongly committed to diverse recruitment and are one of the first sets to appoint a Head of People and EDI to drive this agenda forward. Serle Court has an established Equality, Diversity and Wellbeing Committee with the work of that committee overseen by the Management Committee, thereby ensuring it has the widest application to all aspects of Chambers. Chambers is variously involved in initiatives and organisations that provide access to justice and foster social mobility in the practice of law.
How to Apply
Aspiring barristers are invited to apply to chambers between 5 January 2026 and 22 January 2026, using the Pupillage Gateway application system to search for our Pupillage Vacancy and selecting ‘Apply for this pupillage’. Before completing your application, we suggest you look at our competency matrix (here), which expands on what we look for in our barristers and pupils and will help you prepare the best possible application.
In addition to the standardised Bar Council questionnaire, candidates will be asked to respond in the Gateway to the following questions from Chambers (for which, see our mark scheme here):
1. A clause in a commercial (business to business) contract provides:
"The seller's maximum aggregate liability to the buyer under or in connection with the contract, including any liability arising out of or relating to the performance and/or breach and/or termination of the contract, shall in no case exceed £1 million."
The clause is expressly stated not to apply to claims for personal injury or death caused by the seller's negligence or breach of statutory duty. Assume that the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 does not apply.
In your view, does this clause cap liability for a negligent misrepresentation made by the seller that induced the buyer to contract? Please explain the basis for your view in no more than 500 words.
[The purpose of this question is to test written advocacy and communication skills and intellectual ability and capacity for legal reasoning]
Q2: Please explain in no more than 500 words how you have the potential to become an outstanding oral advocate.
Please provide examples to support your answer to this question. You may wish to structure your answers using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action Result) method, which you can read about online.
[The purpose of this question is to assess your potential to become an outstanding oral advocate. The qualities of an outstanding oral advocate are set out in item 2 of the attached competency matrix]
Q3: Please explain in no more than 500 words how you have the organisational skills, personal qualities and interpersonal skills to become an outstanding barrister.
Please provide examples to support your answer to this question. You may wish to structure your answers using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action Result) method, which you can read about online.
[The purpose of this question is to assess your organisational skills, personal qualities and interpersonal skills. The qualities we are looking for are set out in items 6 and 7 of the attached competency matrix]
Q4: Please explain in no more than 500 words why you are you interested in a career at the Commercial Chancery Bar? Please provide specific examples which demonstrate your interest.
[The purpose of this question is to assess your interest in and commitment to developing a career at the Commercial Chancery Bar]
Once applications are closed, applicants will be contacted about sitting an online multiple choice situational judgment test designed for Serle Court by workplace psychologists, designed to elicit information about relevant attributes which are less readily measured in a standard application process (see again the competency matrix here). There will be a week's window for sitting this test and it will take no more than an hour. No applicants will be disadvantaged in any way if they perform poorly on the test, but we also put forward for first interview those who score in the top 10 of the test, if they have not already been selected. This means we now offer up to around 40 first interviews.
