Chambers of the Year – The Lawyer

Date: 4 November 2020

We are hugely honoured to have won the prestigious Chambers of the Year award at The Lawyer’s virtual ceremony last night.

In what has been an unusual year, we have been able to react and respond to changes quickly and would like to extend particular thanks to our COVID-19 committee for their dedication and hard work during this time. We are fortunate as a commercial set to not have been hit so hard by the pandemic and our recent pledge to fund a withdrawn criminal pupillage demonstrates our solidarity with the criminal Bar and support of the vital work that they do, a decision described by The Lawyer as “one of the most admirable and imaginative moves by any commercial set this year”

This award marks a period of change in Chambers. Marcus Taverner QC hands over the Head of Chambers baton to Alexander Nissen QC following 5 successful years at the helm. During this time we have worked on improving access to the Bar by supporting industry diversity initiatives, running focussed events for female students and been one of the first sets to adoption a contextualised recruitment system aimed to help secure pupils and staff from diverse backgrounds. In recognition that there is still work to do, and in order to secure and retain the best pupillage applicants, we are conducting a root and branch review of our recruitment processes. We are seeking views via our fair recruitment survey and will implement findings ahead of the next round of pupillage applications.

We have had a busy and successful  year,  prior to and since lockdown, reflected by four lateral hires over the last 12 months including the addition of planning and environment to our existing areas of expertise in construction, infrastructure, energy and procurement. We would like to thank The Lawyer for their recognition of all these initiatives, by presenting us with this award.

Winning this award would not have been possible without the contribution of the entire Keating family, our barristers, the clerking and marketing teams working as a unit to provide outstanding client service, and the admin team working tirelessly behind the scenes to support this. We thank each and every one of these individuals, and look forward to being able to celebrate in person together when we can. We are good at that too!

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The Lawyer’s write up on our award win can be accessed by subscribers here.