QC appointment numbers hit five-year high with 107 new silks

A total of 107 new QCs have been appointed in this year’s silk appointments round, including 25 women.

The number of appointments is at a five-year high, after four years of 100 or fewer new silks. However the proportion of women appointed has dropped compared to last year, when the same number of new female QCs were named.

Overall, 45 per cent of the 238 applicants were successful, an increase on 2014/15 when 42 per cent were given QC status.

The new QCs include three solicitor-advocates: Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s arbitration head Stephen Jagusch, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer London arbitration head Nigel Rawding, and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher arbitration co-chair Penny Madden.

Jagusch joined Quinn Emanuel in 2012 from Allen & Overy to head up the US litigation boutique’s arbitration practice.

The trio were among nine solicitor-advocates to apply for silk this year.

While 52 per cent of female applicants were successful, the selection panel chair Helen Pitcher said the panel remained “concerned that the number of female applicants remains stubbornly low”.

Black and minority ethnic (BAME) applicants made up 14 per cent of applications, an increase from previous years. Their success rate was lower than for all applicants with 28 per cent of BAME applicants appointed.

The youngest new silk is 34 and the oldest 57 and call dates range from 1980 to 2009.

The new silk called in 2009 is Brick Court Chambers’ Thomas Plewman SC, who was appointed senior counsel in South Africa in 2008. Scottish silk Andrew Smith of Crown Office Chambers, called to the English bar in 1998, was also named silk in England and Wales in this year’s round.

Other notable appointments include Serle Court’s Daniel Lightman, who was named in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 in 2013, and Serjeant’s Inn’s Bridget Dolan, winner of Barrister of the Year at The Lawyer Awards 2015.

1 Crown Office Row has scooped the most new silks with six appointments.

QC appointments statistics

The new silks: