Maitland Chambers - 12 months - October 2027

Maitland is one of the leading sets of Commercial barristers’ chambers in the UK based in Lincoln’s Inn, London.

We offer legal advice and advocacy of the highest quality both domestically and internationally. We are consistently ranked as a leading set in all our areas of expertise across commercial litigation and arbitration, civil fraud, company and partnership, insolvency and asset recovery, offshore and trusts, and related fields (including banking and financial services, real estate, media and entertainment, IP, crypto assets, professional negligence, tax, private client, charities and ADR). We appear across a full range of UK civil courts and tribunals including the Supreme Court and Privy Council as well as in [JK1] Caribbean, Asian and other jurisdictions. We have the strength and depth to provide representation and cross-disciplinary expertise across the whole range of matters, from a junior for a relatively modest claim to a team with the ability and experience to tackle the largest, most urgent and most complex cases in ways which are comprehensive, imaginative, efficient and effective.

Equality Diversity and Inclusion

Maitland Chambers is deeply committed to diversity and inclusion, both within our own set and across the Bar. We are proud of this commitment, and equally proud of our rigorous recruitment processes, which we believe represent best practice at the commercial Bar and are kept under regular review.

We also recognise that long-standing structural inequalities mean more must be done to ensure our Chambers—and the wider commercial Bar—truly reflect the diversity of the society we serve. We therefore warmly encourage applications from individuals from all backgrounds, regardless of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, or age, that believe that they may have the potential to demonstrate the attributes we look for in a pupil.

Financial and Other Support Available

For our 2027-28 vacancies we offer four 12-month pupillages starting in September 2027, each carrying an award of £85,000 with the option to draw down up to £30,000 in advance of the start of Pupillage. We also fund the compulsory courses required of pupils by the BSB.

How to Apply

Aspiring barristers are invited to apply to Chambers between Monday 5 January 2026 and Thursday 22 January 2026 using the Pupillage Gateway application system to search for the relevant Pupillage Vacancy and selecting ‘Apply for this pupillage’.

In addition to the standardised Bar Council questionnaire, candidates will be asked to respond to the following questions:

1. Please provide any available evidence of your experience and ability in the use of oral communication to argue, persuade and present complex information effectively (350 words).

2. Please provide any available evidence of your ability to make effective decisions using sound judgment (250 words).

3. Please provide any available evidence of your ability: (a) to manage a workload effectively by independent planning, organisation and good time management when under pressure (200 words); and (b) to work effectively with a range of different sorts of people (200 words).

4. In relation to each of the Higher Education qualifications which you have set out in Section 2 - Education, please set out: (i) the marks which you achieved in each paper or course undertaken; and (ii) a short explanation, where this is not obvious, of how those marks and your overall grade relate to the degree classifications (1st; 2(i); 2(ii); 3rd) commonly used in UK higher education (500 words).

5. Are there any other matters, not mentioned above, which you would like to disclose to us for consideration? If none, please write “none” (1000 words).

Other relevant information

Our first and second round interviews are on the fixed dates of Wednesday 25 March 2026 and Wednesday 15 April 2026 respectively. Interviews will be held on those dates in person.

We accept applications from candidates who would be qualified to start pupillage in September 2027 (whether by completing Bar courses before then or by any other relevant qualification pathway). Save in exceptional circumstances candidates will need to have obtained, or to obtain in due course, a minimum upper second class degree or equivalent (albeit that applications can be made on predicted grades). Please note that unsuccessful applicants for pupillage may apply for a second time in a subsequent year; absent special circumstances, we do not accept further applications from candidates who have applied twice previously.

On the completion of pupillage, tenancy will be offered to all pupils who have met the standard expected of a junior tenant at Maitland Chambers, so our Pupils are not in competition with each other.

Further information in relation to the selection process, pupillage at Maitland and the practical impact of our equality and diversity policies, may be found in the Pupillage and Responsibility sections of our website: https://www.maitlandchambers.com/pupillage-recruitment/pupillage and https://www.maitlandchambers.com/responsibility.

If you have any specific queries which are not answered above or via our website pages listed above, please do not hesitate to contact the Pupillage Manager (Ella Hobbs) via pupillage@maitlandchambers.com.