Law LLM

Matthew Champ

Portsmouth law student wins Inns of Court Scholarship

Matthew Champ has beaten over 400 applicants from universities across the UK, including Oxford and Cambridge, to win £7000 which will help him financially when studying for the Bar professional training course next year.

The Harmsworth Scholarship is provided by the Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court which have the exclusive right to call men and women to the Bar. Matthew is the first ever Portsmouth student to win.

Middle Temple has been awarding scholarships since 1877. Its primary purpose is to ensure that those of real ability are not precluded from coming to the Bar by a lack of financial resources. All scholarships are awarded on merit.

The 21 year-old was interviewed by a panel consisting of a barrister QC and two senior criminal barristers.

He said: “The panel really grilled me but I managed to stay confident. One of the questions they asked was ‘if I put through any law reform what would it be?’ I talked about undertakings regulations, which is a notoriously complex area of law. The QC happened to be a practising commercial barrister so this was an area he was familiar with. We ended up having quite a thorough discussion.”

The four key criteria the panel look for in an applicant are intellectual ability, motivation to succeed at the Bar, potential as an advocate and personal qualities. The barristers were impressed by the amount of work experience Matthew had arranged while at university.

“I’ve managed to get a great deal of work experience and have sat with a Judge twice, which is very fortunate. I wrote to him and begged him for the experience and was amazed when he wrote back to say yes,” he said.

Matthew has also been heavily involved in the University’s employment law clinic, a free service offering employment advice to members of the public. The clinic advises on unfair dismissal, various forms of discrimination, redundancy, harassment, the national minimum wage, working time regulations and work permits for migrant workers.

Matthew completed his LLB Law and Criminology undergraduate degree and his LLM Law masters at the University of Portsmouth School of Law. He now has a place at Bristol to study the Bar professional training course, the next step to becoming a barrister.