Masters of the Bench

Catherine Addy excelled in maths at school, but became attracted to a career at the Bar after watching too many episodes of LA Law. She read Law and then took her LLM (First Class) at Cambridge.

She undertook a commercial chancery pupillage at 13 Old Square (now Maitland Chambers) where she has practised ever since. The reality of her working life as a barrister has not quite matched the glamour of the legal profession portrayed by the iconic television programme, but it has funded her love of shoes –  and introduced Catherine to her partner and father of her young daughter.

Catherine was elected a Bencher of the Inn in 2014, while a junior barrister. She subsequently took Silk in 2017 –    while on maternity leave! She was appointed to the Attorney General’s Civil Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown. She sits in the High Court in London as a Deputy Insolvency and Companies Court Judge, and has been a publicly appointed member of the statutory Insolvency Rules Committee since 2013. She is also an ongoing contributor to Gore-Browne on Companies.

In 2015, Catherine was named Insolvency Junior of the Year at the Chambers UK Bar Awards. She practises predominantly in chancery and commercial litigation, restructuring and insolvency, as well as company and partnership work.

She has also been a long- serving member of the Bar Council: as an elected member from 2001-07; Chair of the Young Barristers Committee in 2004; Chair of the Bar Conference in 2007; and a Chancery Bar Association Bar Council member from 2010-12. She was Treasurer of the Chancery Bar Association from 2008-12.

When the demands of work and motherhood allow, she ‘gives back’ through Advocacy Training and as a member of the Bar Council’s Ethics Committee.

Outside of the day (and, let us be honest, sometimes night) job, Catherine enjoys spending time with her family and friends (her partner is a fellow Bencher) and also travelling and shoe- shopping – often combining all these activities when circumstances permit.