Andrew Shipley

2024 British Pegasus Scholar Report

Looking back on past Pegasus Scholar reports, it is close to a cliché to state that the first event of the scholarship was a surreal experience.  Attending the American Inns of Court Celebration of Excellence at the United States Supreme Court was profoundly impactful. Hearing distinguished speakers honour the worthy award winners reiterated that being associated with them through the Pegasus Scholarship is a high privilege, and one that merits a commitment to maximising the opportunity. To be briefly recognised in the evening’s ceremony, having not yet participated in the scholarship, gave rise to some trepidation. I found reassurance in being informed by Justice Sotomayor that she still feels a small sense of fear when entering the Court Chamber. That anticipation, however, was one of excitement as much as nerves, and through the continued generosity of our host attorneys and judges, it was the sense of unique opportunity that became the prevailing mood of my time in Washington, DC, and New York.

The commitment of Inns of Court members to ensuring that we were able to see and begin to understand how varied and sophisticated their areas of practice are became abundantly clear on the first day of the scholarship proper, which exemplifies the way in which we were shown different areas of American legal systems in as much depth as possible in the time available. Following a morning learning about the US International Trade Commission with Chief Administrative Law Judge Clark Cheney and Judge Doris Johnson Hines, we were shown on a tour of the Department of Justice.

This would have been educative in itself, as seeing the names and roles on office doors gives a sense of the scale and variety of the DOJ’s work, and the building’s architecture and decoration give a window into the political and cultural position at the time of its building in the 1930s, but meetings with the Solicitor-General and the Assistant Attorneys General for the Civil Rights Division and Office of Legal Counsel allowed us a remarkable insight. Placing those in context was eased by our hosts, Robert Parker and Ellen DelSole, who added their own insights into how the US government handles appellate matters.

The different role of the US government in litigation in the US, as federal and state law interact and policy priorities alter litigation strategy, is one thing that was clear from our discussions. These also raised themes that would repeat across the trip: the specialist nature of both appellate practice generally and Supreme Court practice in particular; the difficulty of gaining substantial advocacy experience as a junior lawyer in private practice; and the fluidity of individual lawyers’ career paths, moving between government service, private practice, and public service organisations.

Our exposure to the variety of the legal profession in the US continued, with a tour of the Pentagon by Judge James Sweet, as well as trips to observe Circuit Courts in Fairfax County, VA, and Anne Arundel County, MD. Those showed that even when faced with near-identical problems of law or procedure, different cultures can give rise to different solutions. Rather than sending a jury out to allow the judge to hear legal argument, the use of white noise to obscure the discussion between judge and attorney was intriguing to watch, against the otherwise familiar backdrop of a jury trial.

The specific focus on Supreme Court practice that occupied a portion of our time also showed us distinct differences to those familiar with the appellate courts of England and Wales. Although a strict time limit on submissions is familiar to any junior barrister, the developing Supreme Court practice of only two minutes of structured submissions before the advocate opens themselves to the tribunal’s questions is alien, giving the impression to an onlooker that there was a lot going on under the surface. An inspection of the extensive written briefing reveals that this impression is very much reality. However, the approach to submissions as a chance to supplement written advocacy and address concerns raised by the Court appears to invert the common practice in England and Wales, where a skeleton argument sets the framework but even in heavy commercial appeals a great deal turns on how points are framed and made in oral submissions.

It is perhaps because the focal points of the oral advocacy are determined from the Bench rather than by the advocates that mooting remains an essential part of American case preparation. Hosted by the Georgetown Supreme Court Institute, it was intriguing to watch as moot judges did their best to ask questions in the style of and addressing the concerns of the Supreme Court Justices, as well as offering their views on what stylistic traits would best suit the case being run and appeal to the Judges. Various advocates both in government service and private practice informed us that appellate cases would be mooted multiple times before a hearing. Against this difference, an unexpected similarity, revealed on a tour arranged by Professor Derek Webb, was that each of the most publicly prominent court buildings hosts a gym, although the “Highest Court in the Land”, a gym and basketball court above the Supreme Court Chamber, is a somewhat different proposition to the Wellbeing Centre under the Great Hall of the Royal Courts of Justice.

The difference in approach to appellate advocacy was also something I saw after my scholarship moved to New York, as Chief Justice Dianne Renwick welcomed me to the stunning New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, which must compete with the US Supreme Court for the most visually stunning courtroom in the nation. Observing Justices Manzanet-Daniels and Gesmer and their colleagues conduct a busy afternoon list, it was clear that the time allocated was as much the Justices’ as the advocates’. Seeing appeals as of right in a fused profession was also particularly interesting, as in some cases a greater personal attachment to the cases was displayed, particularly where an advocate felt they had suffered implicit criticism of their conduct of litigation at first instance. This was balanced with a familiarity with the evidence-gathering process not always seen from barristers at trial.

Those appeals also demonstrated something that would be clear at the end of my trip – the importance of record-making. Being faced with the question, “where is this on the record?” was plainly not a position to relish, and one that was proactively avoided by the attorneys conducting the negligence trial I observed while sitting with the Hon Hasa A. Kingo and his team in the New York Supreme Court. It was particularly interesting to see this interact with the use of sidebars to avoid discussing legal points in front of the jury, as objections might be recorded either immediately before or after a break in the day, despite having been heard and decided on earlier in the day. Watching the adjustments to a civil trial to run it in front of a jury was similarly fascinating, as questions of admissibility of evidence that might have been dealt with at a pre-trial review in England were determined only when it was seen what might be relied upon, and therefore played out live. Seeing how the attorneys crafted their evidential case around pre-trial motions in limine showed the common flexibility of lawyers to advance their clients’ best case.

As well as these opportunities to see how advocacy has grown to fill the statutory and procedural constraints placed upon them, something that was also true of the time I spent with Andrew Dalack of the Federal Defenders of New York and observing work of Tanya Hajjar and the organised crime lawyers in the US Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, the second half of my trip saw a tighter focus on the commercial and insolvency work that is the core of my practice at home. I was able to meet with a number of attorneys in commercial practice, both at law firms and, memorably, in-house at a luxury goods group.

Meeting with practitioners and members of the judiciary who work in bankruptcy law was to discover a world that felt both very distinct and at times near-identical to that of an English insolvency lawyer. Although procedures such as Schemes of Arrangement and Voluntary Arrangement operate in a broadly similar manner to Chapter 11, the compulsory procedures familiar to junior practice in the Insolvency and Companies Court were absent. Having attended Professor Arthur Gonzalez’ class at NYU, I was struck by how the differing theoretical basis has caused the two systems of insolvency law to diverge. Both are designed to promote business and facilitate a healthy economy but have variant focuses on giving businesses the chance to be entrepreneurial and enabling the provision of credit by facilitating strong creditor remedies and control. I was particularly intrigued by how involved the distressed debt market is in restructuring, and am grateful to the bankruptcy attorneys I spoke to in New York and Delaware for their candour on this. By contrast, a morning spent with Judge David S. Jones in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York was a very comfortable courtroom experience – although there remained differences, such as the use of the court’s supervisory role to schedule of conferences where there were no applications to be heard or directions to be given – the subject matter was familiar, with issues of cross-border insolvency, competing creditors, joint tenancy and secured creditor priority, and the incidence of costs closely resembling an applications list in the Chancery Division.

This welcoming sense of familiarity was also my experience in Delaware, where I was generously hosted by the Rodney Inn of Court. Chief Judge Collins J. Seitz, Jr., of the Delaware Supreme Court, and his law clerks welcomed me to Wilmington, where as well as gaining an insight into how the Court functions I was able to learn something of the history of the Rodney Inn of Court, attending the Inn’s meeting. It is striking to an outsider that Delaware is such a hub of corporate and commercial law – for comparison, by population scale it would be like 60% of the continent of Europe’s publicly traded companies incorporating and determining their disputes in Hertfordshire, with a specialist court based in St Albans.

This seems unsurprising to a (potentially biased) chancery practitioner given that Delaware has maintained its specialist Court of Chancery, which maintains the jurisdiction of the High Court of Chancery as at 1776 alongside statutory additions. Again, I was honoured by the time and attention given by members of the judiciary based in Wilmington. My conversations with Chancellor McCormick and Vice-Chancellor Fioravanti were illuminating as to the challenges faced by a business court in the current political and cultural climate, while the insights of US Bankruptcy Judges Brendan L. Shannon and Mary F. Walrath into the current state of Bankruptcy case law gave much food for thought. In overseeing this day, I cannot overstate my gratitude to Judge Kent Jordan of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for his hospitality, as well as ensuring I had the opportunity to meet his colleague Judge Thomas Ambro and for his grace in suffering the interpolation of my half-formed thoughts on this scholarship into his valedictory at the Inn of Court.

To finish this report with my brief stay in Delaware is to return to the most striking part of the Pegasus Scholarship, which is the extraordinary and humbling generosity of spirit with which I was met. The sense of common cause in maintaining high standards of legal practice as well as the utmost courtesy and civility came through at every occasion. I can only reiterate my gratitude to all those who hosted me, and in particular to those who had primary responsibility for organising this fantastic experience – Josh Bloom and Eric Nitz at Mololamken LLP in New York and Washington respectively and Cindy Dennis at the American Inns of Court, as well as all those who assisted them.

I was incredibly fortunate to be encouraged to apply for this scholarship by Jeremy Richmond KC, having met at an event at my own Inn of Court, and I would encourage any junior barrister to do the same, particularly if they have or would like to have connections to the United States. Although I have focused this report on the legal elements of my trip, the chance to spend six weeks living on the East Coast, from Halloween to Thanksgiving, was one whose value I cannot overstate.


Andrew Shipley is a chancery and commercial barrister specialising in insolvency work. Having converted to the study of law following completion of an M.Phil in Medieval History, He worked for a corporate law knowledge company before coming to the Bar. He also spent a year as Judicial Assistant to Lord Richards of Camberwell when he was a Lord Justice in the Court of Appeal.
Andrew joined Selborne Chambers in September 2024. He is building a broad chancery and commercial practice and accepts instructions in all areas of chambers’ core practice, with a particular focus on insolvency.

Regularly appearing in the High Court and County Court, Andrew also provides drafting and advisory services, and has worked as junior counsel in complex and delicate disputes. He successfully completed pupillage at 9 Stone Buildings in 2020, where he was supervised by members of chambers including Peter Shaw KC.