Choosing Your Practice Area I: Mixed Civil

The Pupillage Podcast

In these two episodes, we talk to barristers and other guests practising in lots of different areas to hear about what it’s really like. What do they love about their practice area? Who are their clients? What sort of skills do you need to flourish? What are the things you really need to think about when choosing your practice? They told us about important lifestyle differences between different practices and how the legal directories can help you look behind aspirational websites. Perhaps most important of all, they told us why, when selecting your practice area, you should keep an open mind. In Practice Areas I, we hear about how to choose your specialism and explored general civil, employment, construction, commercial, public, intellectual property and arbitration practices – and even a practice in ‘death row dogs’ cases… Guests in order of appearance Julia Horner: Chambers’ Director, Blackstone Chambers https://www.blackstonechambers.com/clerks-staff/ Elaine Banton: employment barrister at 7 Bedford Row http://www.7br.co.uk/barrister/elaine-banton/ Richard Wilmot-Smith QC: 2018 Master Treasurer of Middle Temple and practising construction and international arbitration silk at 39 Essex Chambers https://www.39essex.com/barrister/richard-wilmot-smith-qc/ Cathryn McGahey QC: public law and immigration silk at Temple Garden Chambers https://tgchambers.com/member-profile/cathryn-mcgahey-qc/ Benet Brandreth QC: intellectual property silk at 11 South Square, rhetoric coach and advocacy trainer https://www.11southsquare.com/barristers/benet-brandreth/ and https://www.benetbrandreth.com/ or on twitter @benetbrandreth Useful Links The Legal 500: https://www.legal500.com/assets/pages/united-kingdom/uk.html Chambers & Partners: https://chambers.com/research/chambers-uk-and-uk-bar Chambers Student Guide: https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/ and some useful advice on areas of law (the solicitors’ areas equally apply)https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/practice-areas LawCareers.Net Handbook 2019: The Training Contract and Pupillage Guide https://handbook.lawcareers.net/ Target Jobs Law: https://targetjobs.co.uk/career-sectors/law-barristers Glossary Attorney General’s Panel of Counsel: the panel of barristers who are instructed to advise and represent central government departments. Direct Access: where members of the public can instruct a barrister themselves (directly) without having to go through a solicitor. IP (intellectual property): intellectual property is the name given to the product of people’s minds: ideas; inventions; medicines; pieces of music etc. The law of intellectual property concerns the protection of rights in those products. Legal Directories: reference books that rank and recommend chambers and individual barristers. Chambers UK Bar (often called Chambers & Partners) and Legal 500 are the main legal directories. Rights of audience: sometimes known as ‘higher rights of audience’, these are the rights of a qualified advocate to appear in the superior courts. Mentions: typically a very short case management hearing in the criminal courts. Pupillage Training Organisation: or ‘PTO’ – an organisation that can offer pupillage. Traditionally these have been barristers’ chambers but as we hear in this episode, solicitors’ firms and other organisations can now qualify to become PTOs. Year of Call: the year in which a barrister was called to the Bar (i.e. the year in which they qualified). It is used to understand how much experience a particular barrister has.