3RB Awards the Eighth Nicholls Prize for Advocacy

Congratulations to Patrick Cole, winner of the 2025 Gray’s Inn Moot Final, and to Jennifer Zhou who was first runner up.  We are delighted to award them the eighth Nicholls Prize, with £1,000 awarded to Patrick and £500 to Jennifer.

The final took place on Monday 7 July 2025, with James Hines KC attending on behalf of 3RB.  We would like to acknowledge the sterling work of the Gray’s Inn Education and Training Department in relation to this event and their entire educational programme.

About the Winners

Patrick Cole

Patrick graduated from Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford with a BA(Hons) in Classics and English, and was awarded a Distinction in the GDL by City, University of London. He has just completed the Bar Course with the Inns of Court College of Advocacy. Patrick was awarded the Enoch Dumbutshena and Jean Southworth scholarships by Gray’s Inn for the GDL and Bar Course respectively.

Alongside his studies, he represented Gray’s Inn at the 2023/4 Vis Moot, including reaching the finals of the Paris ICC Pre-Moot, going on to coach the 2024/5 team. He also recently won the Times 2TG Moot. As a student mentor with the Vocalise Programme, Patrick taught debating to prisoners in HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

Patrick is determined to pursue a career primarily at the Criminal Bar.

Jennifer Zhou

Jennifer read English at Magdalen College, Oxford. While volunteering at the Crown Court there, she decided to come to the Bar; her legal studies were completed in London as a Bedingfield Scholar of Gray’s Inn.

Jennifer will be undertaking a criminal pupillage at a London set from 2026.

We wish them both every success with their careers at the Bar.

About the Nicholls Prize

Our prize was founded in 2018 in memory of Clive Nicholls KC.  Clive died in February 2017, aged 84.   He had been a member of Chambers for 60 years and was Head of Chambers from 1994 until 2010.  He was still a valued member of Chambers, active in advisory work well beyond his 80^th birthday.   Clive was called to the Bar in 1957. He had graduated with his twin brother, Colin Nicholls KC, who is still a member of chambers, from Trinity College, Dublin and both became leading lights in their respective fields after joining Chambers.  Clive took silk in 1980, he sat as a Recorder of the Crown Court between 1984 and 1999 and became a Bencher of Gray’s Inn in 1989.

Clive’s was a stellar career. He had a wide range of work and was able to apply his mind to legal issues in a number of disciplines.  He specialised in extradition and the roll-call of cases in which he appeared speaks for itself – Nielsen (a landmark case which overturned 100 years of extradition law), Pinochet, Osman, and many other high profile matters.  He appeared in courts all over the world and was internationally acknowledged as a leader in his field.

Throughout Clive’s practice, and in his 16 years as Head of Chambers, he was a genuine father-figure and mentor, ever humorous, radiating dynamism and energy beyond his years and always making himself available to help other members of Chambers. He embodied and exemplified all the virtues of the Bar as a profession: he was a man of integrity who took great pleasure in his work and whose courtesy to fellow barristers never wavered, even in the most hard fought of cases.

We are proud to associate our award with the Gray’s Inn Moot Final, continuing a tradition we started with the DuCann Advocacy Prize, which ran from 2008 to 2017 and honouring the memory of Clive Nicholls KC.

10th July 2025