From costin (at springsource): I've experienced an issue with setting a Servlet Attribute before a Context is started. I've noticed that the ContextHandler has two attribute maps which are used for retrieving ServletContexts attributes. However, when a Context is started, its local map is created and setting an attribute before simply returns (suggesting that everything is okay). However, getting the attribute names or removing an attribute throws a NPE since there is no null check: setAttribute (line 1401): if (_contextAttributes==null) return; getAttributeNames (line 1384) { Enumeration e = _contextAttributes.getAttributeNames(); } In my case, I'm trying to set an attribute before the context is started through the ServletContext and currently I can't. I can use the ContextHandler interface but that ties me to Jetty. Would you consider using as fall back the _attributes field if _contextAttributes is null (context not started)? This way the current behaviour will be preserved meaning that listeners will be called only for attributes registered after the context is started.