4 Stone Buildings

4 Stone Buildings specialise in the fields of:

• company law
• commercial law
• financial services & regulation
• insolvency
• international trusts

Work undertaken

Work undertaken covers all aspect of company law, including shareholders disputes, insolvency, coporate fraud and asset recovery, commercial litigation, banking, financial services and regulatory work, public law and international trusts. A significant proportion of the work undertaken by Chambers is on behalf of overseas clients. Members of Chambers have also appeared in the Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Malaysia, Nevis, Singapore and Trinidad in recent years.

Work and accommodation

There is both work and accommodation for new members, and our general policy is to recruit a new member of Chambers each year from our pupils. New members rapidly build up their own practice, with a mix between their own cases and advocacy experience and cases where they are juniors to the silks in Chambers.

Senior clerk

The senior clerk is a member of the Pupillage Committee and takes a keen interest in all pupils, offering help and advice generally, including guidance for applicants to whom we are unable to offer pupillage.

The structure of pupillage

We aim to give all pupils the knowledge, skills and practical experience they need for a successful career at the Bar. We believe that it is important for all pupils to see as much as possible of the different kinds of work in Chambers. This enables pupils to judge whether our work suits them, and enables different members of Chambers to assess the pupils. Each pupil therefore normally spends time with three or more pupil supervisors within any twelve-month period. If other members of Chambers have particularly interesting cases in Court, pupils will be encouraged to work and attend Court with them.

All pupils work in their pupil supervisors’ rooms, read their papers, attend their conferences, draft pleadings and documents, write draft  Opinions and accompany their pupil supervisors to Court.

Pupils are treated as part of Chambers and are fully involved in the activities of Chambers while they are with us.

Mini-pupillages

We encourage potential candidates to spend a week or at least a few days in Chambers and we will be pleased to arrange mini-pupillages at any time.

What we look for

Candidates are expected to have first class or good second class degrees. But mere intellectual ability is only part of it: a successful candidate must have the confidence and ambition to succeed, the common sense to recognise the practical advice a client really needs, and an ability
to get on well with clients, solicitors and other members of Chambers and the clerks.