Funding

Each pupil at Deka Chambers is supported by a financial package worth £70,000.

The funding is directly paid on a monthly basis in line with Bar Council guidance. Each pupil receives £5,833.33 every month throughout the pupillage. Pupils undertake work in their own names in the second six months of pupillage. Any money paid to a pupil for work undertaken in the pupil’s own name is reconciled against the monthly payments, so that by the end of the year the pupil has received the full value of the award. The measure against which the funding is reconciled is receipts and not billings (because not everything billed may have been received by that point).

We offer the facility to ‘draw down’ part of the pupillage award before the commencement of pupillage. It is a matter over which we exercise discretion, taking into account the demonstration of need and it being for a reasonable purpose. Any money drawn down is taken from the half of the award paid in the first six months. We do not permit a draw down which would result in the remaining funds being diminished below the London living wage equivalent.