High-value work takes a backseat to a strong regional identity, writes Catherine Baksi

The bar in East Anglia is relatively small with a strong sense of identity, practitioners in the region attest. But working there has its up and downs.


Andrew Lindqvist, joint head of chambers at Octagon House in Norwich, one of the oldest provincial sets, says: ‘There’s a friendly atmosphere as you hardly ever go into court without knowing your opponent quite well.’ Guy Ayers, his co-head, adds: ‘There’s little rivalry [between sets], because solicitors know the barristers as individuals and brief the individual rather than the chambers, so you live or die by your own reputation.’


Cambridge-based Fenners is a 40-strong general common law set with the added extra of an environmental team and an annexe in Peterborough. Head of chambers Paul Hollow says it is not only the barristers who get on well, but the clerks too. ‘We all have a common interest to encourage local solicitors to look to local chambers. We are all in competition with each other, but it’s friendly competition.’


Family practitioner Tina Harrington heads Trinity Chambers, established eight years ago with 16 members from Tindal Chambers. Now with 38 tenants and six pupils, the set owns its own premises in Chelmsford and Ipswich, as well as another property that it rents to a local charity. Unusually the set has a number of tenants who work part-time.


‘We can do this because most members live locally,’ says Ms Harrington.


East Anglian Chambers, the largest set in the region, began in 1946 with three tenants. Its 61 tenants and six pupils are spread across four offices in Colchester, Norwich, Chelmsford and Ipswich. Head of chambers David Pugh says: ‘You have the opportunity to live in the country without the commute.’


But ‘we miss out on some of the very high-value work, which goes straight to London’.


Mr Hollow notes it is harder to get to the top of the profession as chambers do not generate sufficient work of silk quality – this observation is patently well-founded as the region has no silks, although a couple of sets have QC door tenants.


But, says Ian Martignetti, head of Peterborough’s 18-tenant Regency Chambers with a Cambridge annexe: ‘Even though there are no silks, there are senior juniors doing leading work on their own.’