4-5 Gray’s Inn Square

About Chambers

Who we are: 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square is a leading housing, planning, property, commercial and public law chambers.

We have a reputation for excellence and are home to a group of intellectually energetic and highly regarded barristers, mediators and international tenants. We are committed to providing creative and practical legal advice to meet the commercial needs of our clients. We have a reputation for excellence in all of our core practice areas. Our barristers are supported by a first-class practice management team.

What we do: Our core areas of law include: administrative and public law, social housing, commercial, employment, planning and property, dispute resolution, election, local government, regulatory and disciplinary, and international law.

What we’re looking for: We seek to identify candidates with the skills and potential to be outstanding barristers within our fields of expertise.

What you’ll do: Pupils’ work will include research, drafting opinions and arguments. Pupils will shadow their pupil supervisor as they do research, paperwork and go to court, sharing an office and analysing how they perform their day-to-day tasks.

Perks: Chambers shall accommodate pupils’ reasonable requests for flexible working hours in order to allow for parents of children and other dependents to meet their caring commitments.

Pupillage at 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square Isabella Taylor, tenant at 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square

Graduated from Queens’ College, University of Cambridge with a 2:1 in Law Tripos, BA (Hons), and the City Law School with a Distinction in Master of Laws, Bar Vocational Studies (with specialism in Advanced Civil Practice). Supervised by Rowena Wisniewska Sethi, Jonathan Manning, and Vivienne Sedgley during pupillage.

Introduction: Pupillage at 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square emulates life at the Bar. No two days are the same, and each pupil benefits from high standards of supervision while having their own unique experience. Pupillage is a highly engaging and practical undertaking; it is not training in the form of traditional academia or the bar course, it’s truly vocational.

Day in the life during non-practising period, ‘first six’: A typical day in the life as a first six pupil at 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square strikes the balance between training the pupil as a practitioner, while nonetheless giving them the opportunity to be genuinely helpful and contribute to the cases that make up their supervisor’s day-to-day workload.

One day in my first six, I spent the morning reviewing my supervisor’s final grounds of appeal and skeleton argument for the Court of Appeal. In advance of reviewing my supervisors’ final product, I had the benefit of drafting my own advice, my own skeleton argument, and my own grounds of appeal. I received detailed feedback on my work. Two members of chambers were working on this case for the appellant, and I was able to get an insightful view into the case from each of them because of the open-door policy within chambers.

In the afternoon on the same day, another member of chambers had received an update on a different matter in the Court of Appeal, of which I had no prior knowledge. I was tasked with producing an urgent research note on a discrete point of law. I attended one of the Inns of Court libraries to conduct my research. The opportunity to assist members of chambers in developing areas of law in the appellate courts was instrumental for me in honing my legal research skills and written advocacy. Conveying research succinctly and clearly is as important as the contents of the research itself.

Days like those were great preparation for my second six, when I was often appearing in the County Court at least three days a week and managing multiple cases at a time. Pupils are trained in drafting pleadings too, with training sessions throughout the year on the set’s specialist practice areas. 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square ensures that pupils have the opportunity to shadow junior members and experience the types of cases on which pupils will be instructed in their second six. This enables pupils to take the leap to representing clients on their own with confidence.

Transition to the practising period, ‘second six’: During the practising period of my pupillage, I was instructed on a variety of cases, from landlord and tenant matters, to injunction applications, among an abundance of general civil litigation work and civil applications in the criminal courts. The support and open-door policy at 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square continues throughout the practising period and beyond, and weekly chambers tea meant I was able to share my experiences with my colleagues and benefit from their insight.

Finally, 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square is committed to ensuring a healthy work-life balance for their pupils. In the first six, I was not expected to work beyond my hours of 9am to 6pm. In the second six, there was an ongoing dialogue with the clerks about case load and what each pupil needed. Chambers fosters open communication and collaborates with its members to tailor each individual’s practice, ensuring members excel at the Bar.

Diversity and inclusion

Anatomy of a case

The instructions arrive: The brief comes through from the solicitors via my clerks. Normally there will be an ‘instructions to counsel’ document along with the papers which will give some background to the case, contact details for the solicitor, an overview of what papers they have provided and whether they will be sending me any other documents closer to the hearing. It is always helpful to check the brief as soon as you receive it, even if you aren’t planning to prepare the case that day as sometimes there is an urgent deadline or a request for immediate advice. I normally have a quick scan of the papers to see what I have been given and estimate the complexity of the case and how long I think it will take me to prepare so I can set aside enough time. I will also check whether it is being billed hourly or as a fixed-fee matter, so I know whether or not I need to record my hours.

Getting to grips with the case: When I sit down to prepare a case, I will spend some time reading the papers in detail before setting out the key dates in a chronology and identifying who the key parties are. I will then establish what the key issues are going to be in the case and what the client wants to achieve. At this point it is common to go back to my instructing solicitor to ask for additional documents or to ask some clarifying questions.

Research and advice: I would then spend some time researching the relevant case law and statutory provisions and considering how they apply to this client’s specific situation. If the case involves something I haven’t come across, I might discuss that element with a more experienced colleague in chambers to check whether I am approaching it from the right perspective. I may then provide some written advice to the solicitor on the merits of the case and whether there are any other steps that can be taken to increase the chances of success or what a suitable settlement might be or alternatively I may advise on which witnesses are likely to be needed at a hearing.

Preparing for court: If the case is proceeding to a hearing, I will then prepare my skeleton argument and my speaking notes. I will often print myself a hard copy of the bundle in which I will tab the key documents/pages that I want to take to the court. The day before the hearing my clerks will confirm which court the hearing is in and what time we are listed to start.

The hearing: When I arrive at court, I will meet my lay client and sometimes my instructing solicitor will attend too. I will brief the client on what to expect, how long I think the hearing will last and answer any questions they might have. I will check in with the usher and ask them to provide the judge with any additional documents I have brought with me. I will also try and find my opponent and confirm if they have any changes to their case and see whether we agree on what the key areas of contention are.

During the hearing I will introduce the case from my client’s point of view and tell the judge what we are seeking and why. I may need to cross-examine a witness, answer questions from the judge and usually make submissions to persuade the judge to rule in my client’s favour.

Following the hearing: Immediately after a hearing I will have a quick debrief with the client about next steps. I will then update my instructing solicitor by phone or email if they haven’t attended to let them know what the judgment was. When I get back to chambers, I will type up my notes of the hearing so I can provide my solicitor with a more detailed attendance note of what happened and provide advice on next steps.