Pump Court Chambers

Established 75 years ago, Pump Court Chambers is a large and well-established common law set specialising in family, civil, criminal and international law, as well as forms of non-court dispute resolution such as commercial arbitration, family arbitration, mediation and private FDRs.

The set: Chambers has 104 barristers, including seven silks, based across its three offices in London, Winchester and Swindon. Each centre is staffed by an experienced clerking team which is known for providing a consistently high service. Although based in London and on the Western Circuit, the work done by the set’s barristers extends throughout the UK and abroad. Members of chambers appear in all levels of courts and offer the highest quality advocacy and advisory services. Many sit as part-time judges in a variety of courts and tribunals, and it has a proud record of having provided numerous accomplished and highly respected judges to the Circuit Bench and other senior judicial posts.

The set is highly regarded by its peers for the depth of its expertise across the full range of contentious legal services. Clients believe that what really sets chambers apart is its attitude to client service – barristers have an unstuffy approach, a ‘can do’ attitude and the ability to give clear advice that makes sense. Chambers is committed to professional excellence and always works to the highest ethical standards.

Types of work undertaken
Civil: The team, made up of over 40 practising members including two silks continues to growth in strength. Chambers has particular expertise in all areas of business and commercial, employment, inheritance, property, personal injury and clinical negligence, professional negligence, regulatory and transport law.

The team also undertakes a large amount of professional negligence work, with a number of practitioners acting as legal assessors and representatives for the General Medical Council and other professional bodies.

Family: With over 60 members including three KCs, Pump Court Chambers has one of the largest specialist family law teams at the Bar. The team practises in four main areas: family finance, court of protection, children public law and children private law. To meet the growing need for a non-court-based resolution service for family finance cases, the team also provides services in family arbitration, mediation and private FDRs. The family finance team undertakes a wide spectrum of work, from complex high-net-worth ‘big money’ cases to actions with more modest assets and incomes. The private children law team specialises in residence and contact disputes and applications for permission to remove children from the jurisdiction. The team also has extensive experience in dealing with child abduction cases with international dimensions and matters involving serious domestic and sexual abuse. In public law it advises and represents local authorities, parents and guardians in all areas of children work, including applications for care and supervision orders, applications for placement and adoption orders, applications under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court, and disputes where local authorities have been joined as parties to applications for judicial review.

International: Oba Nsugbe KC, SAN is widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s and Nigeria’s leading barristers and commercial arbitrators. He has a broad international practice with a particular interest in Africa. He is qualified as a barrister and a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. He advises the Nigerian federal government, several state governments and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, as well as having appeared as an expert witness in several UK cases involving Nigerian law. In addition, he routinely works in other overseas jurisdictions such as Germany, the Cayman Islands, Tanzania, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe. He is frequently involved in multi-jurisdictional cases. Anthony Akiwumi is admitted as an attorney of the Cayman Islands and has practised in this jurisdiction since 1997. He has an excellent command of the issues arising in the context of an increasingly regulated offshore environment. In 2002 Anthony was part of the team that successfully represented the Cayman Islands in its presentations to the OECD/FATF, resulting ultimately in the removal of the Cayman Islands from the list of non-co-operating jurisdictions. Jason Nickless enjoys cases with an international flavour and has advised clients both on- and offshore. He has been called to the Bar in the British Virgin Islands and appeared there before the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, where he was involved in two appeals dealing with the interrelationship between insolvency rules and arbitration clauses. He has dealt with a number of cases involving African mobile telephone companies. He regularly advises on conflict of law matters both inside and outside the EC jurisdictions. Naima Asif has spent significant time in Pakistan gaining experience in cases involving forced/child marriage, domestic/honour based violence, stranded spouse, international child abduction and Islamic law. Naima is regularly instructed to provide expert advice on Pakistani law and Islamic law.

Regulatory: Our regulatory and disciplinary barristers represents businesses and professionals in disputes over their adherence to or application of the standards and rules that govern and guide their operation.

These disputes often run in parallel with proceedings involving commercial, employment or criminal litigation. Our regulatory and disciplinary team are adept at handling these complex, multi-dimensional cases to ensure that our clients receive the best-possible representation on each aspect of the dispute.

Businesses and professions are more closely regulated than ever before and failure – or even the suggestion of a failure – to comply with the relevant regulations and standards can have very significant, even career-ending, financial and reputational consequences. So, it is vital when proceedings are initiated against a business or professional that they access expert representation as quickly as possible, especially where matters progress to a tribunal.

Criminal: Pump Court Chambers’ criminal advocates enjoy an outstanding reputation. Over the last 20 years more than 15 of the group have become circuit judges. In the same period 15 members of chambers have been appointed as King’s Counsel. From these solid foundations chambers has developed into one of the most modern and forward-thinking sets. The team is made up of four silks and 22 junior tenants.

Alternative dispute resolution: Chambers offers a range of services to assist parties to resolve their issues in a modern, focused and cost-effective manner. These services include commercial arbitration, civil and family mediation, family arbitration under the IFLA scheme and private FDRs.