Cloisters

The quality of some of the work coming through can’t be understated. Take Robin Allen KC (former head of Chambers) for example, who has been instructed in more than 40 Supreme Court cases. From acting for Gareth Lee in the “gay cake” case against a bakery which refused to make a cake with a message promoting same-sex marriage to acting in the first indirect age discrimination case to reach the Supreme Court, he’s done it all. 

It’s not just one star at Cloisters though! In one of the most high-profile cases in recent years, Jason Galbraith-Marten KC and Sheryn Omeri, both of Cloisters, secured victory in the Aslam & Farrar v Uber Supreme Court case, which found Uber drivers to be workers as opposed to independent contractors, thereby entitling them to minimum wage and holiday pay. More recent cases worked on by tenants include Catherine Casserley acting for the claimant in a claim against Sainsbury’s for refusing to allow a man with autism in the store with his assistance cat, Josh Jackson acting in a European Court of Human Rights case challenging the compatibility of 12 European States’ membership of the Energy Charter Treaty with their ECHR rights, and Paul Michell representing university LSE in the Employment Appeal Tribunal to protect the identity of an employee. Pupils and juniors at the set immensely benefit from having this work going on around them. 

As well as having quality work, Cloisters bills itself as a “supportive and nurturing set where everyone is given the opportunity to thrive and become the best in their field”. We are told by one insider that someone is “always available to answer questions or read through a case with me”. Another concurs, “I could not ask for better support”. One junior sweetly remarks, “it’s not exaggeration to say my chambers feels like a second family”. 

Care is also taken within the set to ensure that people try and maintain a work life balance. One tenant tells us “there is acknowledgement from everyone that health and wellbeing come first”. That said, there’s no escaping the fact that the Bar is a tough profession, with the impact of the pandemic seemingly making things tougher for some. One tenant confides: “Pre-Covid [work/life balance] was great. Since Covid, with backlogs and absences and taking a judicial role, it’s not great. Hoping to get back on an even keel soon”. Another adds, “work at the Bar is inherently hard to combine with a social life”. Does that mean there’s no social scene at Cloisters? Not quite. Whilst views are somewhat mixed at the moment, we are told that social life at the set “used to be amazing” with “great parties”. Apparently, post-Covid things are now “recovering” with members “getting back into the swing of things”. 

Effects of the pandemic aside, Cloisters is fortunate to find itself in impressive settings at the heart of Temple. One tenant tells us that this means you can hear the Temple Church choir singing some evenings. Whilst “working in Temple is lovely” — it certainly sounds it — the inside of Cloisters is apparently “not the most modern”. We are told that “it needs quite a bit of improvement — lots of which we can’t do because we rent from the Inn”. The IT could similarly do with a bit of an update. Whilst the team are “usually pretty responsive”, views on the technology within Chambers generally are fairly mixed. 

Regardless, a set with such credentials and reputation as Cloisters is certainly a good place for rookies to learn the ropes. Pupils and juniors give it solid marks for training, both throughout pupillage and beyond. One junior tells us: “I have found the availability of ongoing training and support as a junior tenant after pupillage to be hugely valuable in developing my practice and my confidence.” 

Pupils here complete four three-month stints with four different supervisors, seeing all areas of the set’s work, and are encouraged to undertake work for other members as well as do pro bono work through the Free Representation Unit and Law Centres. The set says it sees its role as “educating, supporting and developing pupils” in line with its values of commitment to excellence and delivering exceptional results. Pupils are subject to a formal appraisal at the end of each stint in addition to receiving feedback throughout the 12-month training period.

Those keen to get on board will be competing for one of up to two pupillage spots per year. The pupillage award is a generous £60,000, half of which is guaranteed earnings. Applicants should apply through the Pupillage Gateway. The marking scheme that Cloisters uses is available on their website, with the criteria being academic ability, advocacy, written ability, communication and interpersonal skills, independent of mind/initiative, suitability for the Bar, and alignment with Cloisters. Those scoring highest in the paper application — around 40 to 50 — will be invited to complete a written assessment on a legal problem. Those scoring highest in this will then be invited to the final round interview in front of a panel. 

Cloisters emphasises that it welcomes applications from “outstanding candidates of all backgrounds and academic disciplines”. The set reserves five out of ten of its yearly mini-pupillages for applicants from less advantaged backgrounds, who have a disability, or who have/have had caring responsibilities. There is also extensive space in the pupillage application form to set out mitigating circumstances and disadvantages faced.

The pupillage experience

During the GDL and BPTC, I kept up to date with the big workers’ rights cases that were going through the higher courts, and noticed that advocates from Cloisters were often representing those cases. I realised that if I wanted to become a leader in employment law, this was the place to go. I also joined the mentorship program at my Inn and was assigned a mentor who was a barrister at Cloisters. She was relatively junior at the time, but already did the kind of work I aspire to. I went to see her in the Court of Appeal, led by another Cloisters barrister, discussing the statutory interpretation of a section of the Equality Act. I wanted to copy her career! She was also very friendly and down to earth. When I visited Cloisters with her, I found this was true across the board: people were kind and unpretentious. On top of that, several people at Cloisters practise equality law because they believe in its utility for achieving social good. This aligned with my values.

Cloisters normally takes two pupils. I rapidly made friends with my co-pupil. There was no competition between us. Cloisters only recruits as many pupils as it has space for tenants, so everyone was willing both of us to succeed.

Tenancy decisions at Cloisters are made on the basis of four formal assessments: drafting, advocacy, research, and an assessed interview (with a problem question sent in advance). I sat these assessments in my second six. I was really grateful that the tenancy decision was based on formal assessments rather than on my work during the year. It meant that I could spend the first half of the pupillage year focussing on learning, rather than performing, knowing that any mistakes would not count towards the tenancy decision.

The first six months of my pupillage were roughly divided into two seats. I spent the first 3 months on employment law with one supervisor. This was mostly court-based but I also learned the basics of drafting, advising, and conducting conferences. I also sat in on internal investigations for large organisations. It was a very fast-paced seat. My second seat was split between 6 weeks under a personal injury supervisor and 6 weeks with a clinical negligence supervisor. It is not always split like this: my co-pupil spent her equivalent seat working on the Grenfell Inquiry instead. My second seat was significantly more paper-based, with longer cases involving experts and large quantum schedules. I found I was much more interested in clinical negligence than I had expected I would be, and have retained a clinical negligence practice as a tenant. Supervisors at Cloisters are quite protective of their pupils during first six: you are not allowed to work outside office hours, and you don’t work for anyone other than your supervisor without your supervisor’s agreement. This allows you to absorb huge amounts of new information without getting overwhelmed.

The start of my second six coincided with the first Coronavirus national lockdown in 2020, so I had an atypical experience. Nobody knew exactly how it would look, but there were new employment law issues arising as a result of the pandemic and courts continued remotely. As a result, it was an interesting but strange time to learn the job. My second six was split again between three months in employment and three months in personal injury, but I was beginning to pick up my own cases too and was juggling my time between supervised work and my own work. I also did some work as a junior led by senior members of chambers. On top of this, I had tenancy assessments to sit, so my second six was an exercise in time management as much as anything else.

Second six was a useful transition between pupillage and tenancy. I had some of my own cases, but I also had a supervisor that I could call for help every time I got stuck. I have been a tenant for two years now, and I still regularly call my old supervisors.

The transition from pupil to tenant

The main difference I noticed when I first became a tenant was that my diary suddenly became extremely full. I had picked up a few cases during second six, but nothing like the work that came in when I began tenancy. Much of the work was new ground for me and it was hard to predict how long anything would take. It was an overwhelming first year, and I turned to my old pupil supervisors, and other junior tenants, regularly for support and guidance. I found myself learning on the job extremely quickly. Luckily, Cloisters is full of experts in exactly the type of work I received, so there was always someone to call. People in chambers are very generous with their time.

What is your practice like now?

I have been a tenant for two years now. My practice is mostly employment law, but I also practice in other types of discrimination law (education and access to services) and clinical negligence, and I have done a small amount of inquest work.

A great pleasure of the job is how varied it is. I am in court a lot, which I really enjoy, and regularly conduct long and complex discrimination trials. But I also conduct internal investigations and have a healthy paper practice, which can fit around court hearings. Almost every piece of work contains something new, and I am still absorbing new information rapidly. Each week has a different rhythm to it. Sometimes the work can be very intense, both emotionally – because clients face upsetting situations – and because of the pressure of court. But there is balance: when a case settles or you have a long piece of paperwork to draft, you can settle into a quiet routine. Although I am still very junior, there is huge satisfaction in knowing that I am building up a specialist body of expertise which is truly useful to my clients. There is no feeling like winning for a client you’ve been fighting for.

What is the culture of chambers?

My colleagues are great. I respect and admire them as barristers – and often wonder how I managed to get a place among them – but I also like them as people. They take their work seriously, but they are not self-important. It’s a lovely culture. We also have a very active WhatsApp support group among the junior-juniors. I routinely ask my most stupid questions on that group. When we are all about, we take each other for lunch and coffees and drinks.

Chambers is in Temple – it’s nice to feel right in the thick of it – and we share rooms. The layout is such that 2 or 3 rooms are clustered around a kitchenette, so you end up with little ‘pods’ where people wander in and out of each other’s rooms and bring each other cups of tea. We then have one floor for the clerks and one floor with meeting rooms and a big kitchen. We eat lunch together once a week in the meeting rooms or, when the weather is nice, in the garden.

We have a small team of clerks, and all the clerks work with all the barristers, so we all know each other quite well. This way of working was a deliberate choice (rather than everyone being assigned an individual clerk) because it allows an even spread of work. Cloisters members try quite hard to be transparent among us about who is getting what work, and making sure that everyone who is available for a new instruction is put forward, to eliminate unconscious bias. The clerks are really friendly and they really know what they are doing.

We also have a small business support team who keep us running smoothly as a collective. Chambers has just recruited its first COO, which we think will create lots of new capacity for decisions to be made about Cloisters as a business!

Top tips for those wanting to become a barrister/secure a pupillage at your chambers

Top tips for filling out the application form:

• Cloisters marks pupillage applications using a mark scheme, and we publish the mark scheme on our website. Read the mark scheme!

• Read the mark scheme well in advance of writing your application, and spend some time thinking about how to maximise your marks. If you realise that you haven’t yet got the experience / expertise to get the best marks, go out and get that experience. It is more likely, however, that you do have relevant experience, and you just need to think about how to present it so that it meets the marking criteria.

• Remember that your pupillage application is a piece of written advocacy. This is a chance to show us that you are a good advocate.

• There is no need to go into detail about what happened during mini pupillages. We care far more about your achievements than things you have watched other people do.

Top tips for interviews:

• There is no legal knowledge required for the first round interview, so don’t feel the need to revise any law. There is also no need to revise your CV: there won’t be any personal questions.

• However, you can prepare for your first interview by practising answering questions analytically and clearly. Set yourself a few problem scenarios, or ask yourself some difficult philosophical questions. Then practice answering them in a structured and sensible way. The way you present your answer to a question will give the interview panel an idea of your advocacy style.• If you get something wrong in an interview, don’t worry, and don’t back yourself into a corner maintaining an untenable position. Correct yourself and move on.

• This may sound impossible, but try to enjoy the process. Solving problems is fun, and it’s also the main part of the job!

• Think Critically. Look at your application form and think about what your weaknesses are. Use mentoring schemes like those run by the Inns or COMBAR’s scheme, to get some frank feedback on your application. Then work to fill the gaps and improve the weak points.