1 Hare Court - True Picture

1 Hare Court pupillage review 2025

The Chambers

Sadly, for some the honeymoon phase doesn’t last forever. That’s where 1 Hare Court steps in: as one of the UK’s leading sets in matrimonial finance, the barristers at the set help find resolutions to complex cases: “Chambers thrives on being right at the forefront of our area of family law,” says head of the pupillage committee Richard Sear KC,a claim backed up by 1 Hare Court’s top ranking in family/matrimonial finance in Chambers UK Bar. Senior clerk Steve McCrone sums the set’s work up as “probably 85% is financial remedies, and the remaining 15% is made up of areas like private children law, but it’s heavily weighted towards the finance.” In fact, at this smaller end of the practice, one former pupil added: “As soon as you get to about seven years call, you probably won't be doing any kind of children work at all.”

“There aren’t many other areas of law that change so quickly and align with big societal changes…”

“There aren’t many other areas of law that change so quickly and align with big societal changes,” one pupil told us.One example is the status afforded to women in cases like this: “When it comes to the role of women within relationships, you can see within the case law, and still now, different attitudes being reflected in the judgments. I think that's really, really interesting. It feels like you're a part of something a bit bigger, rather than something that's stagnant.” The set’s client list includes billionaires, celebrities and industry figures. In one recent matter, Richard Todd KC and Richard Sear KC acted for the wife in the high-profile Standish v Standish case in her appeal against a 34%/66% financial split following her divorce - a case which revolved around when and if assets become ‘matrimonialised’. Elsewhere, Richard Todd KC and Edward Benson successfully acted for the appellant in the Court of Appeal in Simon v Simon & Anor, a case surrounding the intervention of litigation funders in financial remedy proceedings.

A “major change” in the set’s recent history is that it now takes on less legal aid work than in the past: “Most of the instructing solicitors stopped doing legal aid work,” McCrone explains, “which is the primary funding for lots of children’s work … and that's just led us to become even more specialised than we were already.” We heard that while 1 Hare Court takes a lot of its instructions from leading City law firms, it also takes cases from high street firms (which tend to supply work for the juniors). The contingent of barristers at the set is growing too, mostly via “organic growth from the bottom,” McCrone adds - “most years we've taken both of our pupils on because, to be blunt, we don't want them turning up anywhere else … they’re of a very high standard!”

The Pupillage Experience

Pupils sit under three supervisors, each for four months. “Everybody's got their own idiosyncrasies and everybody's got their own quirks,” says Sear, but “we try to ensure consistency. Whoever it is, pupils will be immersed in the professional life of their supervisor.” Sear describes the “trajectory” of pupillage as “a lot more the acquisition of skills to begin with” moving to more a demonstration of those skills as pupillage progresses. In practice, this can be prepping cases parallel to their supervisor, practising doing asset schedules and chronologies, or research tasks for other barristers. One pupil told us that these research tasks are “quite a good way for other people in chambers to get to know you.” Under the second supervisor, Sear says, “the feedback will become more structured and more tailored towards specific areas for improvement as the time for pupils doing their own cases comes closer.” Our pupil source said, “by the third seat, I would say I hardly did any work for my supervisor … I’ve just been doing my own work.” One pupil informed us that, “especially in my first seat, my supervisor made sure that I went to court with very junior members of chambers, so that you could actually see the work you end up doing in your second six,” when pupils begin to take on their own cases.

“I almost forgot that we had to have a tenancy interview at the end, because I didn't feel like I was being constantly examined!” 

When it came to workload, one pupil told us that “the clerks are quite conscious that at the beginning, they don't overload you.” In fact, according to one former pupil, at the beginning of the second six a pupil might do one or two hearings a week, which progresses to being in court two to three times a week by the end of pupillage. There’s no assessed work during the year, to the extent that one insider “almost forgot that we had to have a tenancy interview at the end, because I didn't feel like I was being constantly examined!” There are two advocacy exercises during the year (in March and May), which a former pupil described as “practice assessments before the real one.” Is there a grace period for mistakes? “I don’t think I’d be here if there wasn’t!” jokes Sear. “Of course, there’s a grace period,no one is expected to be the perfect barrister right at the start.” We heard that the set’s pupils have been in court a lot more over the last three years or so than previously, “and that’s all sorts of hearings,” from finances to children. There’s also a pupil swap with Coram Chambers, “that enables our pupils to experience public law children work in a way that they otherwise wouldn’t,” says Sear. Pupils also do a week of marshalling in the High Court.

As pupils approach the end of pupillage, there is an application process for tenancy which starts in July and involves a CV, cover letter and references. “The format of the interview tends to be a sort of financial dispute resolution case,” Sear tells us, “which is a quintessential hearing that pupils will have seen during the course of pupillage.” This stage of the process is to test their advocacy skills. Because the exercise is more like the kind of cases seniors handle, “you're really having to draw on the skills that you’ve learned from your supervisors, rather than just what you've learned in your own practice,” one former pupil added. Then there’s the more traditional interview part. Sear informs us that the questions “encourage the pupils to reflect on their existing experiences during pupillage and possibly asking about areas of potential law reform.” The tenancy decision is based on a pupil’s references, oral advocacy skills and written advocacy skills. The committee makes the recommendation to the chambers as a whole, before the final decision is made by the head of chambers.

During pupillage, “the bulk working hours” are 9am to 6pm, with the occasional trip to court in another region or an event at the chambers making hours a bit longer. “You're not expected to work late. If anyone sees you there after 6pm, they'll tell you to go home,” one former pupil told us. What about the culture at the set? “I think it’s actually quite light-hearted” outside of the serious nature of the work, one former pupil told us, “we have lots of little events with solicitors’ firms either set up by chambers or that we're invited to” which we heard have a strong turnout from 1 Hare Court, “from the very beginning, as a pupil you're invited.”

The Application Process

The application process at 1 Hare Court has three stages: a written application, followed by two rounds of interviews. Applications are appraised by panels from the pupillage committee on a name and university blind basis “A really well thought-out and polished CV is absolutely essential because that's how you grab people's attention,” McCrone tells us. Around 20 candidates are invited to the first round, whittled down to eight to ten to the second: “The first-round interview is about 10 minutes long, so it's a shorter interview than a second, which is about 30 minutes each,” according to Sear.

The folks at 1 Hare Court are well aware that family law isn’t something that many candidates will have studied before. Sear reassures us that, “we're not looking for people at the first-round interview to demonstrate that they've always wanted to be family lawyers and that they know everything there is to know about family law, because it's a specialised area of practice.” This means that first-round questions are “broader” and “designed to test motivation for the application.” Also “important” are case analysis skills and “some evidence of oral advocacy.” The second-round interview will be based on a family law case which they’ve been given to prepare for in advance. 

“…it's a bit like Harry Potter houses … everywhere has quite a specific environment and little cultural things that make pupillage different.”

The general consensus was that it’s a good idea to do a mini pupillage at the set first: “It's not essential to have done a mini pupillage with us, but do a mini pupillage somewhere. I must have done five or six and a lot of them were to cross off areas of the law, as well as to identify areas that I wanted to work in,” Sear says. As one pupil joked, “it's a bit like Harry Potter houses … everywhere has quite a specific environment and little cultural things that make pupillage different.”