As a pupil, Christopher is acquiring experience across Chambers’ core practice areas. He commenced his second-six in March 2022 and accepts instructions across all chambers practice areas
Planning and Environment
During pupillage, Christopher was involved in a variety of planning and environmental law matters including:
- Resisting a series of judicial reviews to a major housing development on the outskirts of Canterbury;
- Assisting on a challenge in the High Court to a local authority’s grant of planning permission for a site in a special area of conservation on the basis that the authority had failed to properly consider the impact of development on nitrogen depositions;
- Advising a homeowner on the enforceability of a restrictive covenant in the context of a planning dispute;
- Advising a chain of companies owning a major renewable energy site on liability under the Electricity Act 1989;
- Preparing an application to the High Court seeking a declaration as to the proper interpretation of a statute governing the management of a public park in the context of a proposed major development.
Civil Liability
During pupillage, Christopher gained experience of drafting statements of case, schedules, advices and legal research on a variety of matters including:
- Conducting research for Neil Block QC on the legal framework of Fatal Accidents Claims pre-1976;
- Drafting pleadings and schedules/counter-schedules of loss in personal injury, fatal accidents and clinical negligence matters;
- Advising a school on whether they were liable for personal injury suffered by a pupil during a PE lesson;
- Drafting a counter schedule and advising on parameters for settlement in a road traffic accident claim pleaded at over £3 million;
- Assisting in the preparation of a clinical negligence trial, focussing on whether informed consent was obtained from the claimant, including by drafting a supplementary skeleton argument responding to a legal point raised by the claimant.