The Planning and Environmental Bar Association (PEBA) is a specialist bar association for barristers who undertake work in the fields of planning, environmental and local government law. PEBA hosts seminars, socials and an annual conference, where members can meet and discuss their work and share ideas. This piece reviews an event from earlier in the month (11th November): “How to make a career at the Planning & Environmental Bar”.

The event was aimed squarely at students, to encourage them to consider practicing at the planning and environmental bar. To this end, the evening consisted of a series of short presentations, a panel discussion and a networking reception where we had the opportunity to hear from practitioners working in the field, and gain an insight into the day to day realities of life in this specialist area of practice.

The Presentations

The Chair of PEBA and Joint Head of Cornerstone Barristers Tom Cosgrove KC kicked off proceedings at the Inner Temple with some introductory remarks. He introduced the upcoming speakers, and explained the purpose of the evening, to give students a chance to explore this specialist area of practice, where environmental and public policy meets law.

PEBA Equality and Diversity Officer, Victoria Hutton of 39 Essex Chambers, talked first about the PEBA-supported mentoring scheme from Cornerstone Barristers. The program is aimed at helping people from backgrounds that are underrepresented at the bar to consider a career as a barrister. It provides perks like access to a mentor, events, and workshops to help prospective barristers with pupillage applications. Unfortunately applications for the upcoming academic year have recently closed, but you can find more information on the webpage for the scheme.

Victoria finished her presentation by remarking on the diversity of the work available at the Planning and Environmental bar, and how this leads to a wonderfully diverse set of skills amongst its practitioners.

Next up, we heard from Hashi Mohamed of Landmark Chambers. Hashi came to the bar by an unconventional route, having grown up in Nairobi and coming to the UK as a refugee; he is now a leading practitioner in his field. A truly inspirational story and he was a compelling speaker.

Hashi broke his advice to us prospective barristers down into 5 main takeaways:

1. Don’t plan on a career at the bar as a destination, but as a step on your journey.
2. When it comes to winning pupillage, being “hard working” is not a quality, but a prerequisite.
3. The great thing about the Planning bar is that it is concerned with the future, where many areas of law are concerned with the past.
4. Foster interests outside of the bar.
5. Don’t forget to have fun

Hashi reiterated that winning a pupillage could be seen as much about being resilient, having good time management and luck, as it is about hard work.

The last of the main speakers we heard from was Sioned Davies from No.5 chambers. Sioned expanded on an earlier point about the diversity of activities that a barrister working in planning might engage in over the course of a week. She described how working on a project might unfold from representing one of the parties in a public inquiry, through to site visits, conferences, networking and advocacy in the High Court. The theme was once again the diversity of the activities that practitioners are involved in.

In her closing remarks Sioned echoed some advice which was mentioned by several of the previous speakers, which was that students interested in the planning bar should look for opportunities to attend a public inquiry.

The panel discussion + informal session

After the main speakers, there was a panel discussion. This was a group of relatively new tenants at planning sets, who had kindly offered to talk to us about their experiences of gaining pupillage and early tenancy. This was a great feature of the evening as it gave us a chance to hear from people who had only recently been in the position of many of us in the audience, and there was an opportunity to ask a few questions at the end.

There were 4 speakers, all of whom were recent tenants: Mark Davies of 6 Pump Court, Elana Kaymer of King’s Chambers, Lois Lane of Cornerstone Barristers, and Armin Solimani of Francis Taylor Building. Each speaker gave a short introduction explaining their paths to tenancy, then the floor was opened to the audience for a few questions about gaining pupillage and life at the planning bar.

When the scheduled sessions had concluded we were given a chance to chat to the speakers and other attendees over some drinks and nibbles. Along with the speakers, members from their chambers, and eminent practitioners in the field, three senior judges were also in attendance as guests of PEBA. I have always been amazed to find that so many people at the Bar are willing to give up their time to meet and chat to students and other people aspiring to join the Bar. Everyone I spoke to was incredibly approachable, and happy to answer my questions about their experiences and thoughts on their field and profession.

Planning to start planning?

The first theme throughout the evening was the size and scope of the planning bar and the many routes that the speakers had taken to get there, reflected in the diverse skill sets possessed by its practitioners.

The second theme was the unique nature of the work that the planning and environmental bar, which frequently concerns projects with both social and environmental consequences that will have real-world effects on the everyday lives of people up and down the country.

The scheduled presentations concluded with some thoughts from the President of PEBA, The Right Honorable Sir Keith Lindblom, reflecting on his career at the Bar and as a senior member of the Judiciary. He summed up the experience as “very hard work, for a very long time”, a fitting reminder of what lies ahead for those of us who aspire to a career at the Bar.

If all of the above has piqued your interest, then you can view the recording of the presentation on the PEBA website. On the PEBA website you can also sign up as an associate member to stay up to date with events that PEBA runs from time to time.

Thanks to Vincent Chan for this excellent review – hopefully many of you are now rushing off to sign up for PEBA membership! Before doing his GDL at City, Vince worked for over 10 years as a software engineer in the financial services industry. Lawbore is excited about having Vince on the journalist team this year and exploiting his tech knowledge.