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Story

Jade Lancaster’s Pegasus Scholarship

05 February 2025
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The Pegasus Scholarship was established in 1987 as a means of building links between the legal professions of countries who share the common law system. Each year litigation practitioners in their first five years of practice travel from their home countries to London to undertake the scholarship, and vice versa. I was fortunate to be awarded the NZ Pegasus Scholarship in 2023 along with Taz Haradasa and Kayla Grant (pictured right).

In London I was placed at two different barristers' chambers and spent most of my five weeks there shadowing various prosecution and defence barristers in court. Although the Scholarship is open to any type of litigator, in New Zealand I work as a Crown Prosecutor, so I asked to observe criminal hearings. Highlights included a murder trial at the Old Bailey, a rape trial in the Snaresbrook Crown Court, and a multi-defendant drug dealing trial in the Isleworth Crown Court.

Jade Lancaster, Taz Haradasa and Kayla Grant

I also spent three days "marshalling" with a Crown Court Judge in Inner London Court, which means sitting on the bench with them in court. The Judge I was with was presiding over an attempted murder trial at the time, and in each court break we would go back and chat in his chambers or in the Judges' common room. I spent another day with a Court of Appeal Judge in the Royal Courts of Justice and got to observe a hearing and speak with some of the judges there too.

The barristers who were looking after me were extremely welcoming and invited me to a number of after-work functions as well. I went to formal meals at two of the Inns of Court, a Call to the Bar ceremony, and even a rehearsal for the Grays Inn Christmas show.

In the sixth week, myself and the other scholars from New Zealand, Australia, the United States and India travelled to Edinburgh and Belfast, where court visits had been organised for us. We met with a number of barristers and judges, including the Lady Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, and were given tours of their courts and bar libraries.

I found the scholarship to be an exceptional learning experience and came back with a much better understanding of the similarities (and differences) in our criminal justice systems. And, of course, observing skilled advocates in court is incredibly useful anywhere. There are a number of aspects of the UK criminal law that I believe we should adopt here, though equally I found they could learn from us in other respects. That sharing of experience is the purpose of the Pegasus Scholarship, and I am very grateful for being able to take part in it.

Jade Lancaster
Jade Lancaster
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