The government has announced the appointment of seven new family law QCs.
QCs, or Queen’s Counsels, are senior lawyers with different legal specialities. Most are practising barristers. They can apply for this prestigious title after acquiring significant expertise and a solid reputation. Appointment – by a nine-member selection panel – confers the right to wear a special silk gown in court, so new QCs are often referred to as having ‘taken silk’, or simply as ‘silks’.
No less than 119 new QCs have now been announced. The seven new family law silks consist of three women and four men, each from different sets in London and Cardiff:
- Sam King of 4 Paper Buildings
- Vanessa Meachin of 3PB
- Gemma Taylor of 42 Bedford Row
- Nicholas Allen of 29 Bedford Row Chambers
- Michael Glaser of Fourteen
- Owen Thomas of 9 Park Place
- Nicholas Yates of 1 Hare Court
A total of 50 women applied to be QCs and 32 were successful. Thirty-three applicants came from ethnic minorities and 18 were successful.
The new QCs will take their oaths of office at a ceremony before the Lord Chancellor on 26 February.
Owen Thomas is from a set in Cardiff, not central London.
Noted, thank you
Oh for the good old days when an MP who was a junior was entitled to silk on application – they used to call them nylons because they were artificial silks.
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Am I the only ones who think QCs are like police officers – they get younger and younger and younger!
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Merry Christmas all.