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So; how did I manage to get this mini-pupillage with arguably one of the best and most-revered barristers at the Bar today? In truth, it was very much luck and also due to the extremely nice and highly accommodating senior clerk at 11 New Square, who arranged the placement for me. I had had the pleasure of having many brilliant conversations with John Moore, the man at the helm at 11 New Square, about the hugely exciting life that he'd lead prior to joining John Gardiner in chambers and also about his inside experiences of life at the Tax Bar.

It was after my first mini-pupillage that I asked Mr Moore whether it would be possible to shadow the man himself, as he was away from Chambers the week that I was in London. He then got back to me a couple of days later, saying that Mr Gardiner had agreed to allow me to shadow him during a case before the Tax Tribunal. So that, in short, is how I managed to obtain this placement.

As for the week itself, I arrived on the first Monday in November for what was an exciting and highly interesting case that lasted 4 days. I had a rather rushed tube journey into Central on the Monday morning, due to the train stopping unexpectedly in a tunnel for a smooth 20 minutes, causing me to be rather dangerously verging on being late – something I definitely didn't want to be, especially on my first day. I had given myself a highly generous amount of time to get to Chambers, but didn't foresee my missing of a bus nor the stopping of the train in a tunnel for 20 minutes.

This meant that I had to get off at Holborn – one stop before Chancery Lane – and run across Lincoln's Fields and into Lincoln's Inn, where 11 New Square is located. I was at the door at 1 minute to 9 (rather hot and flustered), but boy am I glad I ran for it, as 2 minutes after my arrival, John Gardiner came in and asked after me, which, had I not been on time, would have caused great embarrassment, as John Moore would have to have said that I hadn't yet arrived. Punctuality is hugely important at the Bar and it was certainly something that I was hoping to ensure during my week in Chambers.

After we were done with introductions (which lasted all of a minute), we were out and walking towards the tribunal, which was about 20 minutes away on foot. We didn't actually go straight to the tribunal building, but to a hotel just off of Bedford Square, where instructing solicitors Slaughter and May had rented out a few rooms for meetings before and after the tribunal and for lunch.

The meeting was rather a briefing with the solicitors and with our expert witnesses (who'd we had called as experts on their home jurisdiction) and it was where Mr Gardiner set out the agenda of the day and also the week in general and he also informed everyone as to what we were to expect from “the other side”, being of course HMRC, this being a tax tribunal.

During the week, I spent quite a lot of time with some trainees at Slaughters, who were all highly engaging and extremely good conversationalists. The opportunity to have lunch with many of the instructing solicitors, John Gardiner and Phillip Walford (John Gardiner's junior) was invaluable and also a truly brilliant insight into the everyday life of counsel at the Tax Bar. I sat with the clients, the solicitors, the barristers day in, day out during the week, which was exactly what Mr Gardiner and Mr Walford were also doing and which made me feel that I was getting a true experience into the life as a barrister.

I had also been very well briefed by Mr Moore and had been kept updated throughout the week, as he'd been so kind as to send me skeleton arguments before my week in Chambers to allow me to brief myself as the arguments being put forward by both sides and he also printed out the court transcripts for each day of the tribunal to allow me to follow up on what had been discussed on that particular day (we had these transcripts about an hour after the tribunal had adjourned; now isn't that impressive).

Rather than bore you to death with what went on each day, I think I'll just enlighten you as to the most exciting part of the week, cross-examination. Witnesses from both sides were called and the other side was then permitted to cross-examine the witness as to the evidence they'd put forward in their statements.

I must say that counsel for the Revenue wasn't hugely impressive as he always seemed to stop short of what people were expecting him to ask and when it did seem as if he were getting somewhere, he'd say “thank you” and not develop that line of thought any further. This did cause for a rather tedious cross-examination, which, juxtaposed with John Gardiner's cross-examination of HMRC's expert witnesses, just looked even worse.

I remember that the first of HMRC's witnesses was a chap who actually did rather well at holding his ground and seemed to stick by what he was saying all of the time, without being explicitly able to reason his opinions. He was a chap who had produced a rather impressive statement to the court of something which was hitherto unknown in any of the jurisdictions in question and which indeed went against the opinion of many highly-respected individuals in the field, not to mention 150 years of case-law.

Even though he was able, to an extent, to not budge from his stance and expert opinion, he did little to show the tribunal (in my opinion of course) why his opinion was correct over the immense force of a contrary opinion. He however showed the next witness to be called what being in the stand against John Gardiner was like and this allowed the next witness to 'prepare'...