A successful merger provides the funds and stability for expansion. But there are risks, says Mark Hubbard
Looking around Lincoln’s Inn it is easy to see that, where there were once many small barristers’ chambers—traditionally a silk or two, half a dozen juniors and a clerk being the norm—there are now fewer, bigger sets. Following Charles Purle QC’s transfiguration into Judge Purle QC on 21 June 2007, mine has 42 barristers, six of them silks, five clerks and as many support staff.
increased mergers
Although the rise in the size of chancery sets is partly the result of a steady stream of arrivals from the other side of Fleet Street, where, after crime stopped paying, bags have become less mixed, the big sets of today are almost all the result of mergers.
Ours took place in 2000, when sets of roughly equal size at 1 New Square and 12 New Square joined forces to form New Square Chambers. Serle Court Chambers and 1 Hare Court merged the same year to form Serle Court. Landmark, Hogarth and Maitland Chambers then formed on mergers—and in Hogarth and
