Matrix swoops to pick up trio

Matrix Chambers has boosted its capability in constitutional, discrimination and environmental law by taking on three tenants.

The three members are Karon Monaghan, who joins from Cloisters, Kate Cook from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) and Janet Kentridge, a South African barrister who joins after completing her pupillage at One Essex Court.

Cook, a senior junior who will join in October, is a specialist in environmental, employment and human rights law. Since 1993, she has been legal adviser at DETR.

Monaghan is the third Cloisters tenant to join Matrix, following the highly-rated employment and commercial practitioner Antony White and commercial fraud expert Matthew Ryder.

She is a specialist in discrimination law and is regularly instructed by the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equal Opportunities Commission.

Kentridge has been practising at the South African bar for six years with a focus on administrative and constitutional law.

Her pupillage at One Essex Court gained her entrance to the UK bar. She will join Matrix in January 2001.

The new arrivals, which bring the total number of tenants at Matrix to 32, boosts the set's contingent of women to eight, although this is still a long way short of the set's long-term goal to have a membership comprised equally of men and women.

Chief executive Nick Martin says: "They [the new tenants] will increase our strengths in constitutional law, discrimination law, employment law and environmental law, all of which are core areas of practice for Matrix."

Last week The Lawyer (7 August) exclusively revealed that Matrix is to become the first chambers to employ paralegals. Its first paralegal will be Anjoli Singh, who is set to start in October.