Pupillage – the Bermuda Scheme

The Bermuda Bar association approached Carmelite Chambers in 2008 regarding a scheme to provide pupillage to criminal lawyers from, and intending to practice in, Bermuda in order to bolster their criminal bar.

They wished to set up a scholarship in the memory of one of their most respected lawyers the late Dame Lois Browne-Evans. Dame Lois Browne-Evans was the first female lawyer in Bermuda, the first black woman elected to parliament, the first female attorney-general and the first female leader of the opposition in Bermuda and the whole of the Commonwealth.  She was a highly respected lawyer and politician so much so that her obituary appeared in The Times.

In due course the scheme was approved by the Bar Standards Board.  The candidates are selected by an Award Committee presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bermuda. The first sponsored pupil from Bermuda began with Carmelite in October 2009.  Since then the scheme has gone from strength to strength.  The Bermuda Bar Association have increased the amount of the award given to the candidates and have attracted each year a large number of applications. In September 2012 Antoine Lightbourne the first candidate under the scheme who completed pupillage with Carmelite was called to the Bermuda bar.

We are proud of our association with the Bermuda Bar Association and privileged that we have been chosen to operate this scheme for training Bermudian criminal lawyers. The scheme aims to foster relationships with the criminal bar in Bermuda and offers to the candidates the benefits of our extensive pupillage training programme.

From those who have completed the scheme, five of the candidates have been admitted to practice in Bermuda, four of whom are already practising in Criminal law. The Bermuda Bar Association has recently stated that the scheme has been very successful in building up their criminal bar.