Maitland Chambers – 12 Months – September 2026 (Pupillage)

Pupillage applications open on Thursday 2nd January 2025 until Thursday 6th February 2024.

About Authorised Education and Training Organisation and Structure of Pupillage

Maitland is one of the leading sets of barristers’ chambers in the UK.

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 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.

We are based in Lincoln’s Inn, London.

Equality Diversity and Inclusion

We are committed to increasing the diversity of Chambers (alongside the commercial and chancery bar as a whole), and applications from members of groups presently underrepresented at the commercial and chancery bar are highly encouraged.

Financial and Other Support Available

For our 2026-27 vacancies we offer four 12-month pupillages starting in September 2026, each carrying an award of £85,000.

How to Apply

Aspiring barristers are invited to apply to Chambers between Thursday 2 January 2025 and Thursday 6 February 2025 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 should disclose to us when making your application? If none, please write "none” (1000 words).

Other relevant information

Our first and second round interviews are on the fixed dates of Tuesday, 11 March and Wednesday, 19 March 2025 respectively. Interviews will be held on those dates in person.

We accept applications from candidates who would be qualified to start pupillage in September 2026 (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; however, 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.