Why 3VB?

Chambers & Partners Student Guide 2010:

"Where chambers is undeniably brilliant is in the field of banking and finance disputes. And heck, what an area to excel in right now!"... "Modern and forward-thinking, 3 Verulam Buildings is a choice pick by anyone's standards."

Chambers & Partners Student Guide 2009:

"‘There's a real buzz about the place' and ‘a feeling of going somewhere.'"... "There's no other way of saying it: this is a very nice set. It is sometimes more modest about its achievements than it need be, but maybe that's part of its charm."

Here are our ten reasons as to ‘why 3VB':

1. The quality of barristers: Chambers is a top commercial set, with its silks and juniors heavily represented in the listings of both leading Directories. Of particular interest to applicants will be the quality of 3VB's pupil supervisors, for the most part comprising juniors of between 10 and 15 years call. According to the Chambers & Partners Guide 2010, three of the top five commercial juniors at the Bar are at 3VB, and this year it gave its Commercial, Banking and Insurance Junior of the Year prizes to 3VB juniors. Last year a different three juniors won Commercial, Banking and IT Junior of the Year. Five of those six recent prize-winners are among our most regular pupil supervisors.



2. The atmosphere: Chambers has a friendly and unstuffy atmosphere. It is not unusual to find members of chambers in each other's rooms chewing over a difficult point of law, or equally heading off to the pub on a Friday evening after work. Members of chambers come from a mix of backgrounds, a significant number coming from other careers, and it makes for a relaxed environment in which to work. Our clerks are a pleasure to work with (both for us and for solicitors), and it is up to each member of chambers how much work pressure they are under.



3. The work: New tenants (and pupils during their practising six months) at 3VB get an unrivalled mix of, on the one hand, being led on big-ticket, often international, commercial litigation and arbitration and, on the other hand, handling their own smaller cases in the county courts and High Court. This is the best of both worlds for developing both a reputation with good solicitors' firms, and the experience and skills to back it up (and for earning a very good income). There is also a genuine breadth of work encompassing commercial litigation and arbitration, banking and finance, civil fraud and professional negligence, insurance and reinsurance, media and entertainment, IT and insolvency. Individual members also practise and are ranked in a wide variety of other specialist areas.



4. Financial support: Pupils are offered a pupillage award of £60,000 for the year, half of which is tax free, with pupils allowed to draw down £20,000 during the BPTC year. Tenants pay rent depending upon their seniority, with new tenants paying a specially reduced rate. Chambers operates a maternity/paternity policy which provides for suspension of contributions to Chambers' expenses for 6 months, and is committed to helping members of chambers juggle their family and their practice.



5. Banking: 3VB is one of the select few top banking and finance chambers (with Jack on Documentary Credits, Banking Litigation, Financial Services Law, and much of the Encyclopedia of Banking Law, for example, written by members of chambers), and for the next few years (for obvious reasons), banking and financial services is where the action will be!



6. A good shot at tenancy: Unlike many of our competitors, we can honestly say that every offer of pupillage is made with a view to tenancy, i.e. if all goes well we will offer all our (usually three pupils) a tenancy. In practice, on average two out of three get tenancy, but the important thing is that this is based solely on the particular individual's own merit: pupils do not lose out on tenancy because of the standard of other pupils. (Recent statistics of tenancy offers to pupils through the Pupillage Portal: 2010 3 our of 3; 2009 2 out of 3; 2008 1 out of 2; 2007 2 out of 3.)



7. The accommodation: All tenants have their own rooms in our spacious newly decorated premises (following expansion into neighbouring buildings in 2007).



8. Education: During pupillage, chambers provides focused commercial advocacy exercises. Later, in addition to the general run of talks offered by members of chambers to each other on recent cases or developments, we also run a short course of talks aimed solely at the pupil and very new tenant on the basics of commercial practice (costs, insolvency litigation etc).



9. Mentoring: As well as pupil supervisors, pupils also have ‘shadow' pupil supervisors who are more junior than the pupil supervisors and are responsible for giving the pupil the kind of work that is similar to what they will be doing on their own account when they commence tenancy. Chambers also has a mentoring system for new tenants to provide support and guidance during the first years of tenancy, and a particular person to run a point past or show a draft pleading to.



10. Secondment opportunities: Opportunities arise fairly often for new tenants to go on secondment to the FSA, banks, or UK or foreign solicitors' firms. It always entirely up to the tenant whether they take these opportunities.