Blackstone Chambers |

Chambers occupies modern premises and offers a friendly and supportive environment in which to complete a pupillage. Principal practice areas cover:

Commercial: Financial/business law, international trade, banking, regulatory, insurance, conflicts, media and entertainment, sport, intellectual property and professional negligence, EU and competition.

Employment: all aspects (including discrimination) are covered by the extensive employment law practices of members of Chambers.

Public law: incorporates judicial review, acting both for and against central and local government agencies and other regulatory authorities, human rights, other aspects of administrative law and commercial judicial review.

Pupils attend an induction week. Thereafter pupils see the varied practices of members of Chambers including commercial, employment, European and public law/ human rights through their pupillages.

Blackstone Chambers offers up to four 12-month pupillages. Successful candidates will have demonstrated high intellectual ability and will usually have at least 2.1 honours degrees, although not necessarily in law. Individual awards of £75,000 are available. The pupillage committee has discretion to consider applications for up to £22,500 of the pupillage award to be advanced during the BPC year.

A new tenant can expect a busy and wide-ranging practice with opportunities to specialise later.

Application details

We have made some changes to our application procedure this year, following a review of our process.

From 2023, we will no longer be inviting applications for mini-pupillage before the Pupillage Gateway opens. Instead, all applications for pupillage commencing in September 2025 will be made through the Pupillage Gateway, which will open for applications on 3 January 2024 and close on 7 February 2024.

The other main change to our procedure is that there will no longer be any interviews for mini-pupillage. Additional competency-based questions on our Pupillage Gateway application form will now provide candidates with the opportunity to demonstrate their aptitude for a pupillage with us. We will invite the top rated applicants – around 50 of them - to do an assessed mini-pupillage between late February and mid April 2024.

After all mini-pupillages have been completed the Pupillage Committee will select a small group of around 10 candidates to be invited to a final pupillage interview. Final interviews will take place in late April 2024. We will offer pupillages to 4 candidates, and one reserve candidate, on 10 May 2024.

Since we require an assessed mini-pupillage as part of the overall pupillage applications procedure, we offer financial assistance either in respect of out-of-pocket travelling or out-of-pocket accommodation expenses incurred in attending the mini-pupillage. This is up to a maximum of £250 per mini-pupil.