Hailsham Chambers – 12 Months – September 2025

Pupillage Vacancy Information

We are passionate about encouraging applications from a diverse pool of candidates. If you are disabled, please feel free to contact us to discuss any reasonable accommodation or adjustments that we might be able to make in order to facilitate your application. Please contact Zoe Gardiner at zoe.gardiner@hailshamchambers.com or Jake Coleman at jake.coleman@hailshamchambers.com   

Hailsham Chambers adheres to and supports the Bar Council's policies on equal opportunity and non-discrimination. Chambers has an Equality and Diversity Policy which will be provided to all pupils at the beginning of pupillage.

1. Why do you believe you will make a good barrister?  In your answer, please identify any relevant experiences or skills that you believe may help you in your career. 

Max 300 words

2. Why do you want to join our chambers? In your answer, please give reasons for your choice of chambers and explain why you are interested in our areas of practice. 

Max 300 words

3. You act for Sophie. In 2015, Sophie was involved in a dispute with her brother, Pete, over their mother’s will, of which Pete was the sole beneficiary.

That claim was settled on the basis that Sophie would receive £75,000. Sophie’s solicitors, Bodgitt & Son, advised Sophie that any money she received should be placed in a discretionary trust to minimise the risk that she might lose her entitlement to state benefits. Accordingly, £75,000 was transferred into Bodgitt’s client account, and then paid into a discretionary trust from which Sophie could draw occasional modest sums without affecting her benefits.

In 2019, a benefits investigation concluded that the payment of the money into the trust had been a deliberate “deprivation of capital” and Sophie was therefore assessed as though she were absolutely entitled to the £75,000. Her benefits were stopped. Another firm of solicitors, Clueless & Co, advised that the assessment was plainly correct. They gave no further advice.

In November 2021, Sophie was notified that the benefits agencies intended to recoup the benefits paid between 2015 and 2019. She instructed Fixit LLP, who advised that she was liable to repay those sums. Fixit also advised that if, in 2015, Pete had settled the money directly into a discretionary trust, the problem would have been avoided and she would have retained her benefits. In June 2023, she issued a claim in negligence against Bodgitt alleging that this is what Bodgitt should have advised. The claim was met with a limitation defence.

It is agreed that Sophie’s cause of action accrued more than six years before she issued her claim.

How would you argue that Sophie’s date of knowledge, under s.14A(4)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980, was less than three years before she issued her claim?

**NOTE TO CANDIDATES: Please assume that Fixit’s 2021 advice is correct and that the settlement could have been so structured that Sophie would have retained her benefits, and that this would have been better than receiving the £75,000 outright.

Please concentrate on the legal issues rather than exposition of the facts or the authorities. You are asked only to consider the following judgment: Witcomb v J Keith Park Solicitors [2023] EWCA Civ 326. You may refer to other cases, but only insofar as they are quoted in the judgment in Witcomb.

(max 750 words)

Additional questions:

4. Would you wish to undertake pupillage on a part-time or other flexible basis, rather than full time over 12 months? (Max 300 words)

5. Please provide details of any extenuating circumstances relevant to your application (Max 500 words)