Guildhall named Chambers of the Year at British Legal Awards

Bristol’s leading barrister set, Guildhall Chambers, has landed the coveted “Chambers of the Year” award at the British Legal Awards 2011 in London’s Old Billingsgate Market. Guildhall are the first regional set to win the award despite a particularly competitive shortlist of top-rated London sets. This second major prize in five weeks for Guildhall follows the “Regional Set of the Year” award they scooped at the annual Chambers Bar Awards and a record 65 top barrister rankings in the latest edition of legal directory, Chambers UK. To win the award Guildhall had to demonstrate significant progress over the past 12-18 months in legal expertise and innovation, strategic vision, business winning, client care and a commitment to diversity and corporate social responsibility. Key factors taken into account by the judges were Chambers’ “clearly defined and well executed strategy which has led to a slew of top quality instructions” and how the set worked both “purposefully and imaginatively to develop its five specialist teams” in order to attract the very best UK and internationally-renowned cases such as the Lehman and Madoff insolvency cases and group actions against AIG in financial services.