Brick Court Chambers is one of the pre-eminent sets in commercial, EU, competition and public law, with over 100 barristers and 22 door tenants who practise across numerous specialist areas and are regularly involved in the leading cases of the day.

Chambers was founded by William Jowitt in 1921 and rose to prominence as a commercial set in the 1970s, when shipping and international trade litigation increased exponentially. Its rise continued into the era of City deregulation and beyond. Members of chambers have acted in landmark commercial cases, including Lonrho v Shell, Henderson v Merrett, Three Rivers, Fiona Trust, Masri, Berezovksy v Abramovich, Nigeria v Process & Industrial Developments and Sharp v Blank (HBOS). They appear in tribunals around the world, including the Dubai International Financial Centre and the courts of the BVI, the Cayman Islands, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Brick Court Chambers has been in the forefront of the development of competition and EU law. Chambers has been involved in all aspects of competition litigation, from regulatory appeals such as Pay TV to claims such as Interchange Fees, FX and Trucks. Members of chambers have acted in a string of UK ‘firsts’: the first follow-on trial, the first award of damages for breach of competition law, the first claim for cartel damages to reach judgment, the first Supreme Court case on the new class action regime, and the first opt-out class action to reach trial. Members have acted in a range of seminal cases at the European Court of Justice, from Factortame onwards, in areas that include EU fundamental freedoms (Sunday Trading, Viking Line); taxation (Cadbury Schweppes); aviation (Open Skies, Monarch Airlines); State aid (Gibraltar); liability for judicial decisions (Köbler); the relationship between EU and public international law (Kadi); asset freezing and human rights (People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran); and the revocability of Brexit (Wightman). Many members are qualified in EU Member States, so retain rights of audience before the ECJ post-Brexit.

Chambers expertise in commercial, EU and competition law is complemented by its equal strength in public and international law and human rights. Cases of note include Spycatcher, Datafin, Jackson v Attorney General, Norris v Government of the USA, Bancoult, Walker v Innospec, R (Unison) v Lord Chancellor, the Miller litigation and R (AAA) v Home Secretary. Members of chambers have acted in leading judicial review and public inquiries and have appeared before the European Court of Human Rights in, among other cases, Hatton, Animal Defenders International, Chagos Islanders and Yukos v Russian Federation. Chambers has numerous current and former members of the Attorney General’s Panels.

Members of Brick Court Chambers have included Attorneys and Solicitors General (William Jowitt, Donald Somervell and Nicholas Lyell) and a Lord Chancellor (Jowitt), and many members of chambers have gone on to hold high judicial office and other distinguished positions in public life. They include: four Law Lords (Lord Asquith of Bishopstone, Lord Somervell of Harrow, Lord Devlin and Lord Pearson); four Justices of the Supreme Court (Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the first President of the Supreme Court, Lord Sumption, the first lawyer appointed to the Supreme Court without previously having served as a full-time judge, Lord Leggatt and Lord Lloyd-Jones); three chairs of the Law Commission (Mr Justice Cooke, Lord Lloyd-Jones and Lord Justice Green); two Presidents of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (Mr Justice Barling and Mrs Justice Bacon); a Judge of the General Court of the ECJ (Nicholas Forwood); an Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation (Lord Anderson of Ipswich KBE KC) and a former Justice of the South African Constitutional Court (Sir Sydney Kentridge).

Brick Court Chambers is proud of its ongoing ability to recruit the most able lawyers of their generation and of its clerks’ room, which is critical to chambers’ ability to respond to the needs of modern clients. Chambers’ rise to prominence began under senior clerk Ronald Burley, continued under Ian Moyler and Julian Hawes and is now ably supported by Paul Dennison and Tony Burgess and their teams.

Charles Hollander KC has written a history of chambers, A Hundred Years of Brick Court, which is available here. Further information about chambers’ centenary celebrations, including our centenary charities, may be found here.