7 King's Bench Walk

Chambers

7 King’s Bench Walk is a specialist commercial set, with a reputation for excellence and intellectual rigour. All members of chambers specialise in commercial law, in particular in disputes relating to insurance and reinsurance, professional negligence, shipping, conflicts of law, banking, commercial fraud, international sale of goods, energy, oil and gas, and City work. The general character of chambers’ work is of an international flavour, often involving foreign clients, foreign lawyers and foreign law.

The atmosphere at 7 King’s Bench Walk is friendly and easy going, as well as highly professional. We have a strong contingent of QCs, (22 out of 51 current members are QCs), but we are a relatively young and dynamic set with an atmosphere that we hope reflects our composition.

The primary appeal of commercial work is that it is intellectually demanding and stimulating. It involves reading and absorbing large quantities of documentation, understanding complex factual and technical information, analysing the legal and commercial issues that arise and researching the law that applies to them. Being a good commercial lawyer requires strong intellectual and analytical abilities, as well as common sense and sound judgement.

Pupillage

We do not expect applicants for pupillage to have any knowledge of commercial law or to have studied the areas of law in which we practise. We do, however, expect applicants to have strong analytical and intellectual abilities. We do not interview candidates who do not have, or expect to achieve, a first or a good 2.1 degree, except in very exceptional circumstances.

We offer a maximum of four funded 12-month pupillages to applicants who intend to seek a tenancy at 7 King’s Bench Walk. Pupillage awards of £60,000 will be available for 2013–2014 and 2014–2015, up to £10,000 of which may be advanced during the BPTC year.

A large component of a pupil’s work will be assisting in the preparation of trials and applications and attending court with his or her pupil supervisor. It will also include drafting statements of case, researching the law, writing opinions and attending conferences where advice is given and cases are discussed with solicitors, clients and expert witnesses. These are skills that a barrister specialising in commercial law can expect to use throughout his or her practice, and pupillage is primarily an opportunity to develop those skills and to observe others putting them into practice.

Chambers continues to expand, and able candidates stand a very good chance of obtaining a tenancy upon completion of pupillage.