Pupillage Vacancy Information
About Authorised Education and Training Organisation
Serle Court is a set of barristers’ chambers offering genuine expertise across the chancery and commercial disciplines. We cover the whole range of ‘business’ law, from offshore litigation about the world’s largest companies to domestic advice on probate matters, for both private and professional clients at home and abroad.
Widely recognised as one of the top sets at the English Bar, members of chambers are recommended in 25 practice areas by Chambers UK and 12 practice areas by The Legal 500. We are one of the largest commercial chancery sets, with 85 members, including 28 silks, so we are well placed to offer the right barrister or team for each case.
About Serle Court
We believe that a pupillage at Serle Court provides the best possible foundation for commercial and 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 and 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, to ensure they are as well qualified for starting in practice as soon as possible. Although pupils do not get an opportunity to practise advocacy in court, 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 £75,000, 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 organisation 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 2 January 2024 and 6 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 in the Gateway to the following questions from Chambers:
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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
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 our 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.
