The Pupil's View

I was a pupil at 8 New Square from October 2008-September 2009. During that time I sat with 5 pupil supervisors; Mike Tappin QC, Charlotte May, James St. Ville, Tom Moody-Stuart and James Abrahams. During my second six months of pupillage I also worked with other barristers in Chambers including John Baldwin QC, Mark Chacksfield and Jessie Bowhill.

The pupillage process is a very steep learning curve which can be quite daunting at times, but the members of Chambers went to great lengths to make my pupillage as interesting and as enjoyable as possible. I was always involved with every aspect of my pupil supervisors’ work and was provided with many opportunities to get hands-on experience of the work of a barrister: I was included in all conferences and telephone calls with instructing solicitors, clients and experts and was encouraged to draft my own documents alongside my pupil supervisor which we would later compare and contrast with my pupil-supervisor’s finished document. I was encouraged by all my pupil supervisors to voice my own views regarding the cases which were working on and to ask questions (no matter how stupid they might be!) Chambers’ approach of learning-by-doing is certainly something which I think makes pupillage here such an exciting experience. I was fortunate enough to be involved with a number of high profile and interesting cases across the whole of the IP spectrum during my pupillage. For example:

• Whilst I was Michael Tappin QC's pupil we prepared for and completed 2 lengthy patent trials which allowed me to learn about the preparation of expert reports, drafting opening and closing skeleton arguments and the preparation of cross-examination. I was also involved with some of the preparation for the House of Lords hearing of the Generics v Lundbeck patent case and was lucky enough to be able to attend the hearing itself.

• With Charlotte May I was involved with the preparation of the ECJ submissions in the case of Premiere League v QC Leisure regarding a number of issues relating to copyright and competition law. I was also involved with the drafting of the grounds of appeal and skeleton argument for the Court of Appeal in Hotel Cipriani v Cipriani (Grosvenor Street) Limited on issues of international goodwill, bad faith and the own-name defence to trade mark infringement.

• When sitting with Tom Moody-Stuart we were involved with the Court of Appeal case of Whirlpool v Kenwood regarding the registration of shapes as trade marks and with the remedies hearing for Vestergaard Frandsen v Bestnet which addressed the issue of spring-board injunctions in breach of confidence cases.

• Whilst I was James Abrahams’ pupil I was involved with the preparations for one of the Nokia v IPCOM cases regarding patent infringement and validity of a number of patents for mobile phone technology.

The breadth of expertise in Chambers allowed me to experience all areas of IP law during my pupillage and gave me exposure to all of the major IP solicitors firms. The barristers in Chambers always made sure that I was introduced to the solicitors with whom they worked and never failed to make the solicitors aware of my involvement in producing work for them. This approach has assisted me greatly in my first year of tenancy as a number of the solicitors with whom I had contact during pupillage have since instructed me as a result of their experience of working with me during my pupillage.

Isabel Jamal

Barrister