Landmark Chambers

Recent planning and environmental work gives a flavour of just how central Landmark is to this area. The set appeared in 10 of Planning Resource’s 12 key rulings of 2025, with 18 Landmark barristers involved across those cases. One headline example is CG Fry & Son v Secretary of State for Housing, the long-awaited Supreme Court case on whether environmental protections aimed at reducing nutrient pollution could still bite after planning permission had already been granted for a housing scheme. Dr Ashley Bowes and Matthew Henderson appeared for the successful appellant, CG Fry, in a decision with major implications for housebuilders, environmental protections and local planning authorities. Elsewhere, Landmark members have been busy with everything from grey belt development and solar farms to music festivals in public parks. Joint head of chambers Sasha White KC and Matthew Henderson acted for Lambeth in the High Court challenge to the use of Brockwell Park for large-scale music festivals, while Richard Moules KC and Nick Grant appeared for the Secretary of State in a High Court case clarifying the approach to “grey belt” land near a National Landscape.

The public law, procurement and inquiries work is no less eye-catching. David Blundell KC and Karl Laird represented the Home Secretary, with Tim Buley KC acting as leading Special Advocate, in the Court of Appeal litigation over the proscription of Palestine Action, a case raising major issues of national security, protest rights and Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR. The team successfully represented the Gambling Commission in the £1.3 billion National Lottery procurement challenge, following a trial lasting more than two months. Landmark members have also been involved in some of the most sensitive public inquiries around: Harriet Wakeman is counsel to the Southport Inquiry, while the set has also appeared in litigation arising from the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

Members really do have “challenging, interesting and high-profile” caseloads, we’re told, and the set’s work regularly straddles public law, human rights, national security, procurement and regulatory disputes. Landmark members are instructed by all kinds of clients, including central government, local authorities, companies, individuals and NGOs. Around 30 members sit on the Attorney General’s panel of counsel, underlining the volume of government work flowing through chambers. “I have been genuinely surprised by how much good quality public law work there is,” says one rookie. “I don’t think there are many other sets professing to do public law where a junior can do this much interesting work.”

It’s not just the work at Landmark that’s high quality. We hear the tenants themselves are pretty wonderful too. Senior members are said to go out of their way to nurture those starting out, with one junior saying they “have felt supported from day one of the tenancy.” There’s very much an open-door policy throughout the set, so there’s always someone to go and speak to if you need help. “If I ask for help, I get it. If I am asked for help, I give it. This is embedded in our culture and it is essential to the way we roll,” one insider told us. And even when you’re not physically in the building, advice is always on hand: “If you email your colleagues, then despite everyone appearing so busy, you get multiple responses within minutes, even for the most minor or stupid junior barrister queries. This level of support for the most junior members of chambers baffles me, frankly.” The clerks earn praise too, with one tenant calling them “excellent and unstinting in their support and dedication.” Landmark has also been there in times of need on a personal level, with one member praising the set for going “above and beyond when I had a health issue.” Wellbeing initiatives are in place, such as the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), which helps barristers, pupils and staff with personal and professional problems.

This support is sometimes especially important, as high-level work can often mean long hours. One tenant tells us: “I’ve had a lot of high-level cases on hand recently, which has made balancing work and life a little bit trickier than usual, but my clerks are really helpful in supporting me through difficult times and keeping my work diary sensible.” Another echoes the point: “While (as for all self-employed barristers) the internal pressure to keep taking on new cases is always there, our clerks are great at supporting us to make decisions about work capacity which promote work/life balance, and they help us when diaries become complicated.”

All of which makes it the more important to unwind. Happily, members of chambers commonly meet for lunch, or for cake on Mondays, even if remote working has thinned the numbers. We hear there are “fairly frequent” social events, though other tenants tell us that, because everyone is so busy, “post-work casual social activity is limited.” According to one tenant, social life “has not recovered since the pandemic.” At least Landmark’s location makes it easy to pop out for a quick lunch or post-work drink. Based on Fleet Street, the set sits handily near the Royal Courts of Justice and lawyer-y drinking holes such as El Vino.

While it’s safe to say Landmark lacks the historic grandeur of those chambers that find themselves in the Inns, the inside of the building is well-equipped. Indeed, one tenant has described the space as the “only bad thing about Landmark,” and even that is far from a given. The client-facing side of chambers is said to be “well-presented,” with “well-equipped conferencing facilities” and “decent air conditioning and heating.” In summary: “It’s not the most impressive building, but who cares? Are the barristers in it impressive? Oh yes.” Nuff said. As for the barristers’ rooms, we’re told there’s an endless supply of tea and biscuits on each floor. The only difficulty is getting up there, as one tenant reveals: “The lifts have clearly been possessed by a wayward sprite or djinn (mischievous rather than malevolent) who enjoys toying with pupil and KC alike. How his antics make us chuckle!”

The IT team receives strong feedback, with praise for its “skilled IT technicians” who have helped to “facilitate all manner of new technological innovations.” Chambers has also signed up to LiquidText to support tenants in analysing complex documents. Rookies joining the set can expect access to a library of legal texts in chambers, plus the keys to Landmark’s online knowledge bank, which includes Westlaw and Lexis. Pupils also receive dedicated training on the set’s practice management and diary system.

Landmark recruits up to three pupils per year, one specialising in property. Pupillage is divided into four seats: planning and environment, property, public law and a fourth of the pupil’s own choosing. Pupils complete three written and one advocacy assessment, with feedback provided on all. As one former pupil puts it: “I had an absolutely lovely pupillage. Assessment and results were clear, supportive colleagues and interesting work where I learned a lot.” Pupils are encouraged to work with other members on their cases throughout the year, and Landmark arranges for them to work with a KC or senior junior on more complex matters. In the second six months, pupils are given their own cases and dispatched off to court, usually the county court or first-tier tribunal, on small applications. The training process clearly worked well for one insider, who tells us: “Being on your feet for the first time is nerve-wracking for every new second six, but I felt ready to rise to the challenge. It helped that my supervisors were always on hand to provide last-minute assistance.” On top of training carried out within the set, Landmark also funds pupils’ attendance at several extra training events throughout the year, including the compulsory pupillage training courses.

Anyone wishing to apply for pupillage should do so through the Pupillage Gateway. Those scoring highest in the written application will be invited to complete an hour-long written assessment, for which no prior preparation is required. The highest scorers in that assessment are then invited to an interview in front of a panel, with offers made on the combined scores from the written application, assessment and interview. The pupillage award is a generous £80,000.

For those lucky enough to receive an offer, and willing to put in some hard graft, Landmark has a good record of retaining pupils. According to chambers’ website, in the last three years the set has kept on eight of its nine pupils, and it emphasises that even where a rookie isn’t kept on, it has an equally strong record of finding opportunities elsewhere. Worth noting too: pupils aren’t in competition for tenancy spots. If there are three pupils, there are three tenancy places up for grabs.

Landmark says it is committed to improving equality and diversity at the bar. In association with Cornerstone Barristers, Falcon Chambers, Field Court Chambers, Francis Taylor Building and Kings Chambers (all sets with similar specialisms), it runs a mentoring scheme for under-represented groups at the bar. It also supports Bridging the Bar and 10,000 Black Interns.

The pupillage experience

I was drawn to Landmark Chambers because of the quality and depth of public law work available to members at all years of call. I was aware that members had been instructed in some of the most significant public law cases in recent years. Beyond that, however, Landmark is unique in that there is high-quality work available acting for both claimants and defendants across the whole spectrum of public law, from health and social care to national security.

My one-year pupillage was divided into four “seats”, each lasting three months. These followed Chambers’ main areas of practice, namely, planning and environment, property and public law, with a fourth seat in an area (or areas) of your choosing. There is a concerted effort to expose pupils to as much of Chambers’ work as possible, including at different courts and tribunals and in specialist areas of practice. Over the course of the year, I attended planning inquiries for major developments; judicial and statutory review applications in the High Court; commercial property litigation in the County Court; an appeal hearing in the Court of Appeal; and several days of the Post Office Inquiry. The breadth of the work I saw in pupillage has left me well-prepared for the early years of my practice, as I have found that I am rarely going in “blind” to a case.

Pupils are assessed through a combination of formal assessments, feedback on work assignments and end-of-seat reports from pupil supervisors. At the end of every seat, I met with the Pupillage Committee, who relayed feedback to me and ensured that I had a sense of how well I was doing and what areas I should develop. I found this transparency reassuring, and it made me feel supported to develop as an advocate. Formal assessments took the form of written and advocacy assessments, which included drafting pleadings, written opinions, a High Court advocacy exercise and a mock planning inquiry.

Pupillage is, invariably, a challenging process, but throughout the year, I felt that Chambers was rooting for me to succeed, and that I had the tools to do so.

The transition from pupil to tenant

Starting ‘on your feet’ is a daunting process for any baby barrister. There were two aspects to the transition that I found particularly helpful.

First, there is a very supportive culture in Chambers. It is not unusual for members to call or message each other, or to pop in to each other’s rooms, to ask for advice on how to handle a difficult issue in a case. ‘All Chambers’ emails asking for tips are often met immediately with detailed responses from experts in complicated fields of law. This is true of all years of call, and I have never felt like a burden when asking more experienced practitioners for their guidance.

Second, the opportunities to do high-quality led work in Chambers are, frankly, excellent. As a public law practitioner, I do a combination of unled (i.e. where I am the sole counsel for my client) and led work (i.e. where I am working alongside a King’s Counsel or ‘senior junior’). The opportunity to work with and, critically, learn from more experienced practitioners has helped me develop my practice quickly, and means that I benefit from years of experience that I do not yet possess.

What is your practice like now?

I have a broad public law practice, spanning areas including human rights, immigration and asylum, public inquiries and inquests, education, health, social care, Court of Protection, and planning and environment work. These may seem diffuse, but the advantage of a set like Landmark is that you have the opportunity to work in lots of different areas and figure out what you find most interesting and rewarding. No door is closed to you.

Because of the variety in my practice, every week looks slightly different. I am normally on my feet once every two weeks, on average, and have appeared in courts at all levels from the First-tier Tribunal to the Supreme Court. This leaves me with a lot of time for preparation and for written work, which typically includes opinions, drafting and strategic advice on my ongoing cases.

Naturally, having such a busy practice comes at a cost. I typically work between 55-60 hours per week, which can be draining. The advantage of self-employed practice, however, is that I can take longer holiday to recover from particularly busy periods, and am lucky to have an understanding clerking team who encourage me to make sure I am not over-extending myself. The difficulty – which many junior barristers encounter – is bringing yourself to say ‘no’. The flipside of being at a chambers with so much high-quality work is that it is always tempting to agree to a case because of the opportunities it offers.

Looking ahead, I plan to continue building my public law practice, and to look for opportunities to build the human rights aspect of my practice in particular. I have already had the opportunity to contribute to a practitioner’s book on human rights law, which was edited and written by Landmark Chambers, and am enjoying the challenge of putting my knowledge into practice.

What is the culture of chambers?

Landmark is a reflective chambers. While members and staff have a sense of pride in being here, everyone is equally driven to make chambers as a whole a better place to work and practice. That applies not only to the calibre of work, but also to management and governance matters. I think this makes Chambers dynamic, ambitious and forward-looking.

I have already addressed the fantastic culture of supportiveness in Chambers. The only real downside to the culture in Chambers is that everyone is so busy with their case load that we don’t get as many opportunities to socialise as we would perhaps like.

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

The best advice I can give to anyone seeking pupillage, whether at Landmark or elsewhere, is to equip yourself with a proper understanding of what the barristers there actually do. Chambers are looking for pupils who will contribute to the growth of their key practice areas. No-one expects an applicant to have detailed knowledge of the minutiae of, for example, being a public law litigator. Do make sure, however, that you understand what a chambers’ main practice areas are, and demonstrate why you are interested in them.

This may sound like trite advice, but can be surprisingly tricky. It is worth being aware that chambers’ websites are typically written for a client audience, and may not shed much light on what junior members are doing day-to-day. I once did a mini-pupillage at a set which I applied to on the basis of its international law expertise, only to learn that most juniors were spending their days doing personal injury work. The best way to avoid my mistake is to look for and read reported judgments in which members of the chambers appeared, as well as to take any opportunity you can for mini-pupillage, shadowing and meeting members of chambers.