My first day at Matrix began meeting the front of the house team (Abbie and Olivia) who were extremely kind and warm-hearted.

Day One was composed of meeting three different teams: The Legal Support Team, who help compile the barristers’ skeleton arguments together and complete research tasks for them as well as offering us advice about less direct and more realistic routes to becoming a barrister; The Fees and Finance team who were funny, knowledgeable and showed us how finances, salaries and wages work at Matrix; The Practice Team who explained to us how Barristers receive cases from solicitors and how barristers balance their work life. We took our lunch break and went to M&S on Chancery Lane. Our most vital task of the day was to read the barrister’s skeleton argument for the court case we are observing over the next two days, taking notes on it and understanding the four criteria needed to prove negligence in a UK court (important for our specific case). We finished the day by having coffee with Matrix barrister Catherine Dobson and commuted home.

On our second day, we did a lot of travelling to and from Matrix and the Royal Courts of Justice as we were shadowing Jesse Nicholls on his case in court. His case was extremely interesting and, quite frankly, sad. It was good to see the real challenges that barristers face rather than just the sunshine and rainbows you read about online.This case was particularly difficult and very challenging for me to understand. We had a few breaks to get a drink and stretch our legs as the court hearings were quite lengthy and technical and we were asked to leave the courtroom multiple times due to the barristers needing to ask confidential questions and work experience students are sadly not within the confidentiality ring. We arrived back at Matrix, prematurely, and completed our blogs as well as some research from yesterday and some ad hoc tasks.

On the third day, we shadowed Edward Craven KC on his case in the Royal Courts of Justice. I found this case extremely engaging and due to the fast-paced execution of this case it was much easier to digest and understand the actual format, timing and etiquette of court rather than just the information on the case itself. I took notes the whole time to help me digest the information and arguments being made and both barristers were extremely good; allowing me to see different techniques and strategic methods used by the defendant particularly to try and restructure the focus of the debate to get what they wanted. We had our lunch break and went to the pret a manger that was just next door and then returned at just before 2 to set up our laptops and get ready for starting again. This day really highlighted the strategic methods that barristers use. Just before the court proceedings ended, we returned to Matrix and completed our blogs and finished off some court notes from yesterday.

After an exciting and eventful week, we finally reached our final day! We started off our last morning with our interviews for the future lawyer’s scheme and did a research task using the Westlaw database in-between each of our interviews. We popped out for an extra-long lunch break and then returned to finish some tasks from the previous days and prepare for our meeting over coffee with the trainees currently going through pupillage. We met Florence Powell, a current trainee at Matrix, who told us the ins and outs of what it’s like during pupillage; she mentioned several ways we can realistically become barristers; emphasising that experience and getting your foot in the door is extremely important. We packed up and said our goodbyes to everyone and each other and then commuted home.

In conclusion, my time at Matrix chambers was extremely valuable and an amazing and interesting opportunity . Our time here ranged from research tasks to coffee with barristers and to sitting in court – this was an amazing week, and I can’t thank the Matrix team enough!