[2024] UKUT 264 (LC)

We received detailed evidence about the way in which professional practice was conducted by Members of Chambers. Some of that evidence concerned the subjective views and motivations of individual Members, which we do not regard as relevant to the issues we have to determine. Nor do we believe that the arrangements it described are materially different from those we would expect to find in other specialist sets of barristers’ chambers. The purpose of most of this evidence was to emphasise the degree to which each Member has their own individual practice and to try to diminish the importance of the collegiate or collective character of Chambers, without disputing that it exists. In his closing submissions Mr Trompeter KC acknowledged that evidence about the allocation of work within Chambers does not shed light on the use and occupation of Rooms.

Each Member conducts their own business and receives their own instructions from clients. Chambers’ clerks are employed by the appellant on behalf of all Members but act as agents for individual Members. They are closely involved in assisting Members to organise and manage their respective practices, including by negotiating fees, chasing payment, and recommending the appropriate Member to prospective clients. It is part of their responsibility to consolidate or leverage relationships made by Members with professional clients to introduce those clients to others, especially more junior Members.

Almost all instructions are received from professional rather than lay clients. Most of those professional clients are themselves specialists in the field of taxation and, especially for more senior work, will commonly already have decided which Member they wish to instruct. If the preferred Member is unavailable the clerks will suggest others who are free to do the work. If the work is suitable for more junior members, the professional client may not have a particular barrister in mind and will ask Chambers’ clerks for suggestions. On other occasions, which the appellant estimated covered about 25% of cases, instructions come from professional clients who are not tax specialists and who ask the clerks to recommend a suitable Member to receive their instructions. In most of those cases the professional client follows the clerks’ recommendation.

As a result of prior selection, when instructions arrive they come addressed to a particular Member, and it is never left to the clerks to accept instructions on behalf of Chambers as a whole and then to allocate them to a Member of their choice. Where potential instructions come to Chambers without the client having a particular Member in mind, they will not formally be delivered until a Member has been identified to receive them.

If the Member to whom instructions have been delivered is unable to do the work, those instructions will not automatically be retained in Chambers. It will always be up to the professional client whether to instruct another Member or a barrister in another set of chambers. The clerks’ job is to try to keep the work in Chambers by recommending an alternative Member who is available to receive the instructions.

Chambers as a whole has a public profile and markets itself and its Members to professional clients on a collective basis. We were referred to Chambers’ current website (and it was not suggested this was different in relevant respects at the material day). Here Chambers is referred to collectively, both when quoting the glowing assessments of legal directories and when describing their work (“We advise on all corporate/business tax issues”, “Chambers undertakes a high proportion of work …”, “Members of Chambers advise”). Each Member also has their own individual page detailing their particular expertise and experience.

Members are not obliged to participate in the management and administration of Chambers, but many do. Examples of activities intended to benefit Chambers as a whole include interviewing prospective pupils, acting as a pupil supervisor, and sitting on the Management Committee or other Chambers’ committees. Members also attend and give lectures at conferences and seminars organised, promoted and facilitated by Chambers, with Chambers branding, and attended by professional clients. Participation in such events is encouraged. They are seen by some Members principally or even exclusively as a way of promoting their own businesses, while others regard them mainly or additionally as a way of promoting Chambers as a whole.