Special Counsel.

Why the chambers engages Special Counsel

The chambers’ resident bench is deliberately concentrated — deep in the disciplines it practises, restrained in the disciplines it does not. For certain matters that fall outside this concentration — particularly defamation, privacy, intellectual property, and the reputation litigation where remedy and narrative are inseparable — Marshall & Benson works in association with senior practitioners whose entire practice is built around those questions.

We call them Special Counsel. They are not employees or members of the chambers; they are members of their own respective firms, independently insured and independently governed. The arrangement is intentional: when a client’s matter requires specialist trial-room capability of a kind it would be irresponsible for a generalist chambers to claim, the right answer is to bring in a counsel of record whose work in that area is the reason they are first-call nationally.

How an engagement is structured

Special Counsel are introduced into a matter by agreement with the client and on the basis of a clearly documented co-engagement structure. Each side — the chambers and the Special Counsel’s firm — retains its own engagement letter, its own conflict and capacity checks, and its own professional-liability cover. The chambers retains day-to-day co-ordination on the broader matter; the Special Counsel leads first-chair on the trial work for which they were retained. Billing is transparent and arrangements are reviewable at every stage.