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The Pupils’ Views

Tom Bell

I was a pupil at Hardwicke in 2006-7. The main reason I applied to Hardwicke was because of the fact that, although I had plans to specialise in commercial law, the diversity of work offered meant that I could experience other areas before making a final decision.

My first pupil supervisor was Colm Nugent. He has a fairly broad practice, centred around personal injury, employment and general commercial law; though during the time I was with him his caseload was mainly personal injury. I was with him for three months, when the time was split between accompanying him to court - including, fortunately, a 7 day trial in which he was led by a silk - and paperwork.

I then moved onto David Lewis. He specialises in employment and commercial law. Like Colm, his method of teaching was to involve me fully in his current workload, rather than give me dead papers to read. This means that David often made use of my work (having made varying degrees of changes of course). This was certainly gratifying. The flipside was that it meant I had to keep up with his busy practice, which inevitably meant the odd late night, though certainly not as many or as late as my friends in city law firms experienced.

During my time with David I began my second six. By this time I was largely committed to specialising in commercial work. The work the clerks gave was therefore broadly geared to this. After a fairly gentle start my workload increased substantially. The work was a mixture of 'bank charges' hearings (stemming from the well-publicised OFT litigation), mortgage possessions, contractual small claims, as well as some road traffic claims and infant settlements.

Because of the amount of time I was spending in court, my final seat - with PJ Kirby - had a very different feel to the previous two. Although I did work for PJ and on occasion accompanied him to court, he was happy to allow me to concentrate on my own practice. This certainly helped, because it often involved long days travelling all over the country.

In around July I was told of a vacancy in the commercial team, and my application was fortunately enough accepted. I haven't looked back since!

Pupillage at Hardwicke was for the most part an enjoyable experience for me. At times it was very hard work, and there were inevitably periods when I was anxious about what people thought of me. Overall, however, the stress levels were much lower than I feared they might be, not least because I got on well with all of my supervisors

Philip Fellows

I joined Hardwicke as a pupil in late August 2008 having spent the previous eleven months at Wilberforce Chambers, completing the final month of my pupillage and beginning my third-six in October. I was taken on as a tenant in December 2008. In the sections below I will describe what life is like as a third-six at pupil Hardwicke and also try to answer some of the concerns I had when I was applying.

Work in your Third-Six
As a third-six pupil you will have finished your twelve month pupillage and be trying to build a practice of your own. At the same time you do not have tenancy and need to impress senior barristers in order to stay permanently. The work you undertake in your third-six reflects this balance.

At Hardwicke there is plenty of work for third-six pupils to be doing in their own right including both court-based and paper work. This work ranges from mortgage repossessions, applications and county court trials to drafting pleadings and advices. There are opportunities both to earn a living and to build relationships with solicitors.

At the same time as building your own practice you will need to be producing work to be assessed by other members of chambers. To help you with this you will be given a supervisor who will be in charge of helping you and assessing your work, together with other members of chambers who will set and assess pieces of work and give feedback. The practice managers will help you with this by not sending you out to court so often you cannot get anything else done.

Joining from Another Set
It can be difficult moving to a new set after twelve months elsewhere. Hardwicke is a very friendly and welcoming set to join. The junior and senior tenants will help you to settle in and everyone’s door is open to talk things through and offer help and advice.