Maitland Chambers - True Picture

Chambers profile

Chambers UK has rated Maitland in the top rank of commercial chancery sets every year since 2001.

Type of work undertaken

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 the 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, cryptoassets, 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. 

Pupil profile

Academically, Maitland looks for a first or upper second class degree. There is no such thing as a “Maitland type”. We look for the qualities which we think are required to excel in our field of practice: a first-class mind; an aptitude for written and oral advocacy; good judgment; sound interpersonal skills; and a level temperament. We believe that those qualities are to be found in candidates from every background; and can be evidenced in many different ways.

Pupillage

Maitland offers up to three pupillages, all of which are funded. There is no limit to the number of tenancy offers we can make in each year; if you are of the requisite standard, you will be offered tenancy, so our pupils are not in competition with one another. During the assessment period, pupils sit with four supervisors in rotation, spending ten weeks with each. The set takes the view that it is important for pupils to see a variety of the areas of work done in chambers. Chambers believes that oral advocacy remains a core skill of the commercial chancery barrister. The set provides in-house advocacy exercises for pupils during their pupillage. These take the form of mock hearings, prepared in advance from adapted sets of papers, with senior members of chambers acting as the tribunal. They provide detailed feedback after each exercise. These exercises are part of the assessment process and help develop essential court skills.

Mini-pupillages

Applications are considered three times a year; please see chambers’ website for current deadlines, and details of how to apply.

Funding

Chambers offers up to three 12-month pupillages, all of which are funded (£75,000 for pupils starting in September 2024). Up to £30,000 of the award may be drawn down in advance during the BTC year or to pay BTC fees. There is also a cashflow assistance scheme available at the start of practice as a tenant.

Diversity, inclusion and wellbeing
Maitland Chambers has a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, both within our own set of Chambers and across the Bar as a whole. We are proud of that commitment. We are also proud of our internal processes for fair recruitment, which reflect (we believe) the very best practice currently in use at the commercial and chancery Bar and are kept under regular review.

But we also understand that, given the long-term and structural inequalities of life in our country, more is required to ensure that our Chambers (and the commercial and chancery Bar as a whole) fully reflect the diversity of the society which we serve. We welcome applications from people from all sections of society regardless of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief or age and encourage applications from groups presently under-represented at the commercial and Chancery Bar. Current chambers initiatives specifically designed to promote such applications include:
- Our in house Mentoring Scheme for potential applicants from ethnic groups underrepresented at the commercial / chancery Bar (including, in particular, black applicants)
- Our regular Women at the Commercial Chancery Bar events

We are also strongly supportive of initiatives to increase the diversity of new talent joining the commercial and Chancery Bar generally, including through our participation in the Sutton Trust’s Pathways to Law programme, the Social Mobility Foundation’s Bar Placement Scheme, our sponsorship of the Cambridge Law Faculty’s Access and Widening Participation Scheme, the involvement of our members in the Chancery Bar Association’s “Step into law and MORE” scheme, and the participation of members in a wide variety of mentoring schemes and other outreach activities.