Serjeants' Inn took home the chambers innovation award in recognition of its efforts to mitigate a more challenging commercial environment by seeking to break into new and potentially more lucrative markets.

The plan – part of a broader revamp spearheaded by its client services team to modernise the way the chambers work – is an attempt to reduce its reliance on publicly-funded clients such as hospitals (where pressure on budgets have crushed fee income) and expand into private work for high-net-worth individuals (in this case, drawing on its expertise in medical ethical litigation).

The chambers sets out to do this in two ways. One, by ramping up its knowledge-sharing offering to highlight its competence (through the publication of a regularly updated medical law report and accompanying blog, which the New Law Journal described as giving readers a service almost akin to a free, direct, advice line to Serjeants' Inn counsel). And two, by giving potential clients a more intimate insight into its roster of barristers (via a series called reflections on its new website).

The initiative has already reaped rewards, with fees in this area nearly doubling in the past 12 months, spurred primarily by an increase in higher-paid cases for affluent private clients.

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