The Legal Cheek View
When it comes to chancery, both traditional and commercial, XXIV Old Buildings is one of the best in the business. Its 50 barristers (including 12 KCs) are renowned for their offshore work, and with around half of the set’s revenue coming from other jurisdictions, it’s no surprise that chambers has offices in both London and Geneva. Several tenants are called to the bar of the Eastern Caribbean or the Jersey bar as well as the bar of England and Wales. Operating in areas ranging from aviation to art and cultural property, it’s no wonder one junior tells us their work is “incredibly stimulating”, with “no two cases being the same”. Up to three lucky pupils will have the chance to get involved, and to pocket an impressive award of £90,000.
As for traditional chancery work, tenants can find themselves on anything from family disputes over wills to real estate litigation. The work often involves “complex and interesting points of law to grapple with” and “exotic” facts. One tenant tells us that “a particular joy for me has been the regular opportunity, as a member of chambers, to advise and advocate for clients on cases that push developing social and economic norms to new boundaries”. Another inside source boasts of “being instructed in two cases that are now in the textbooks in less than two years of tenancy”. Tenants are also happy with the balance of led and unled cases, the set offering “lots of opportunities to take on your own cases and do your own advocacy from the start of practice, alongside opportunities to be led by senior members”.
On the commercial chancery side, tenants can often be found working on high-value offshore cases, as well as complex matters involving professional negligence, fraud, asset tracing, insolvency and restructuring, to name just a few. One junior tells us their work “grapples with factual issues at the forefront of the offshore and commercial world”. Barristers regularly appear in offshore courts and tribunals in locations such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Hong Kong.
The domestic work should not, however, be overlooked. As one tenant explains, “I think that our excellent offshore reputation sometimes can overshadow the brilliant work that members do in the Business and Property Courts in London. In recent years we have had members in many of the biggest and juiciest commercial trials and trust disputes.”
The “sheer variety of cases” at XXIV Old Buildings is one of the most important features for many tenants. “I have seen a fantastic range of really interesting (and sometimes even genuinely exciting) disputes since I have been at XXIV Old Buildings,” one insider tells us. “You see a great range of clients, from some of the biggest blue-chip, listed companies and financial institutions for whom litigation is almost a feature of their business, through to individuals in ‘all or nothing’ litigation that means the world to them personally, and that variety is really stimulating.” Another tenant, who has a broad commercial chancery practice, walks us through a day in the life. “I can be dealing with a tricky company insolvency point in the morning and a disputed will in the afternoon (with a call about malfunctioning airline parts at lunch)! This keeps everything really fresh and means I am never bored.”
Recent cases have seen tenants pop up everywhere from the Supreme Court to the Privy Council and a string of offshore courts, which isn’t always usual in a chancery practice! Three members (Professor Graham Virgo KC, Daniel Warents and Niamh Davis) appeared in the Supreme Court in El-Husseiny v Invest Bank PSC, an appeal of general public importance on the construction of a key term of the Insolvency Act, while Stephen Moverley Smith KC and Edward Cumming KC acted on either side of a Privy Council appeal confirming that, at common law, shares pass on death according to the law of the shareholder’s domicile. More recently, Edward Cumming KC, Adam Cloherty KC and Edward Knight featured in a ground-breaking Bermuda Court of Appeal cryptocurrency decision in Re Bittrex Global (Bermuda) Ltd (in liquidation), and Bethanie Chambers helped see off Google’s bid to vary a collective proceedings order in the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Quite the mixture of complex and cutting-edge work!
Despite so much exciting work going on, tenants are generally very pleased with their work-life balance. “I feel I have complete flexibility to take on the amount of work that I want to, and to carve out time for having a life outside chambers,” one junior says. “I rarely work on the weekend, except during exceptionally busy periods, because of my ability to plan my time effectively in chambers.” We hear that colleagues and clerks are incredibly supportive and make sure people maintain a healthy balance. “I take time off for child-care, and just today my head clerk rang me to check if some new work would not cut across my time with my daughter,” another member tells us.
As well as being supportive on work-life balance, the tenants at XXIV Old Buildings back each other up on any work questions too. Apparently the set is “genuinely collegiate”, with people always on hand to “provide a sympathetic ear or a helpful sounding board”. One junior offers this insight. “We have an open door policy in chambers and I feel very comfortable asking more senior members for help. Pupil supervisors continue to be a great port of call long after pupillage has ended.” “You can always find someone in chambers to discuss an idea or a case with,” another junior tells us. One tenant even shares a personal note, describing “feeling supported by colleagues and clerks while having issues connected with caring responsibilities that have been pretty difficult for me over the couple of years since starting as a tenant”.
Particular praise goes to the “phenomenal” clerking team, “who are great at helping you build your practice and giving sensible guidance”, and who “want you to flourish as a barrister but also as an individual”. The engine-room of chambers “never” piles on pressure to take extra work unless it’s wanted, one insider says, recalling that they “never find something in my diary without being asked about it first”.
When it comes to training, pupils beam about their “pupil supervisors being excellent”, “putting a lot of time” in, and “really caring about developing my legal skills”. One pupil tells us they have “regular review meetings with the pupillage coordinators to provide constructive guidance on how to improve. The emphasis is on ongoing feedback and continuing assessment, rather than a small number of fixed assessments.” And the advice sticks around long after you make tenant, with one established practitioner noting that they “still quote the advice I received from my pupil supervisors now”.
Given the barristers are a “friendly bunch”, it’s unsurprising that they also enjoy socialising together. One member, who sits on the social committee, tells us that “XXIV Old Buildings places a real emphasis on the social aspect of being a member of chambers. Not only do more junior members often go for trips to the pub after work, but chambers has a full calendar of drinks and dinners throughout the year.” Events such as the Christmas party are particular highlights, and we even hear rumours of “regular ping-pong events”, which seem to be a longstanding favourite.
The set’s social life is helped along by its location in Lincoln’s Inn. Members regularly pop across to Lincoln’s Inn Hall for lunch together, or head to the local pubs after work. Chambers is housed in a “beautiful set of buildings” in a “beautiful corner of Lincoln’s Inn”. The “ancient” surroundings shouldn’t, however, fool you into thinking the set is old-fashioned. Inside there’s a “modern working interior”, with facilities including numerous table tennis rooms (which sometimes double up as conference spaces) and showers. The set has also invested heavily in its IT offering, which makes working from home, or indeed from anywhere in the world, a breeze. 24-hour support is on hand for those who need it.
For those interested in applying for pupillage at XXIV Old Buildings, applications go through the set’s own process, which consists of a simple form and an online aptitude test. Those candidates scoring highest on both the form and test are asked to provide a CV and covering letter, and are invited to a 20-minute interview in front of two members of the pupillage committee. The 12 highest-scoring candidates are then invited back for an assessment day made up of an advocacy exercise, a group discussion exercise and an unseen written exercise. Three lucky candidates walk away with the £90,000 that comes with pupillage.
Pupillage is structured over four separate three-month periods, each with a different supervisor. Pupils can expect to assist their supervisor by researching and drafting written advice, drafting pleadings and writing skeleton arguments. Given the very technical nature of the work, opportunities for pupils to land their own cases can be limited at first. Instead, the set focuses on gradual development, training and learning, though pupils can expect to take on some of their own cases in the county court in the latter months. One former pupil says “the training I received during my pupillage was of the highest quality. I was regularly given feedback on the work that I had produced, the subject matter of which spanned the entire breadth of work that one might see in chancery practice”.
As well as offering mini-pupillages, XXIV Old Buildings participates in COMBAR’s mentoring scheme for under-represented groups at the bar. The set also teams up with other chancery sets to run a pupillage seminar focused on diversity at the commercial chancery bar, which aims to “challenge any preconceptions about barristers or our areas of work and to inspire students from all backgrounds and sections of society to consider a future at the bar”.