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Clockwise from top left: Amanda Brown KC, Craig Hassall KC, Anna Dilnot KC, Sophie Cartwright KC, Ray Tully KC and Gwion Lewis KC
KPMG Law, London
Amanda Brown QC, a tax disputes lawyer and partner at KPMG Law, was appointed to silk in 2021. She becomes one of a tiny number of solicitor-advocates who have been appointed to silk who are not international arbitrators, coming as she does from a multi-disciplinary practice. As a higher-rights qualified lawyer, Amanda has appeared as an advocate at all tribunal and court levels having been the first lawyer in a UK accountancy firm to appear in the European Court of Justice. Amanda is also a CEDR accredited mediator and in 2014 she was appointed as a Fee Paid Judge in the First Tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber). Amanda is KPMG Law’s first QC.
The daughter of a civil engineer and a housewife, Amanda spent her infant school years in Tehran, where her father worked as part of a small ‘friendly and tight-knit’ engineering company. On her parents return to the UK, Amanda attended state schools. Her ambition to become an advocate dates back to when she was just four years old, inspired as ‘tiny dot’ (Amanda is still short of stature) by Barbara Calvert QC, the wife of John Calvert, another civil engineer. Amanda’s ‘brilliant and talented’ mum made Amanda a perfect little black gown and, using her quilting skills, a little barrister’s wig. Amanda used a large cardboard box as the witness stand to cross-examine her sister.
Barbara Calvert QC had a huge influence on Amanda’s choice of career – and also that of many other young barristers, particularly women. In 1974, Barbara had set up her own chambers, Four Brick Court, to help those starting out, becoming the first female head of chambers. In 1986, she became the first female QC to be appointed a full-time chair of Industrial Tribunals and, in 1977, Barbara helped set up new chambers (now 1 Pump Court) for young barristers starting out. Barbara died in 2015 at the age of 89 but had suffered from Alzheimer’s and Amanda says that she lost her ‘mentor and role model’ some years before then.
Amanda says she briefly flirted with the idea of becoming an RAF fighter pilot when she was 14 but she generally kept her career sights on the law. However, she kept her options open by studying for a joint accountancy and law degree at Manchester University, where ‘I discovered just how good I was at, and loved, numbers.’ Amanda was torn and rather tempted to become an accountant. However, Barbara Culvert QC told Amanda that it was not an either/or decision and that she could successfully combine both strands – law and accountancy – in a career. Barbara persuaded Amanda to begin her career in the law, not least because this would be the harder option to return to later in life (Barbara herself had been called to the Bar at the age of 35). And instead of applying for Bar school, Amanda was encouraged to initially qualify as a solicitor: Barbara had the foresight to see that it would not be so long before high-calibre solicitors would be permitted to apply for higher court audience rights. Also, initially becoming a solicitor would have the attraction of security of employment (in contrast to the largely self-employed Bar). Amanda believes that even in 2021, job security remains a bigger consideration for female advocates than for their male counterparts.
Amanda qualified as a solicitor at Eversheds in 1993. An opportunity immediately arose at what was then HM Customs & Excise for Amanda to combine accountancy and law working as an advocate in relation to tax appeals, where she was soon marked out as a talented advocate who was given increasingly complex cases to lead on. Amanda seized another opportunity in 1999 when she successfully applied for a position at KPMG, where she set up the tax disputes practice. At that time Amanda was only allowed rights of audience as an advocate at the first-tier tribunals. However, in 2006, Amanda had a case representing University of Arts London, in an application to ‘leapfrog’ to the Court of Appeal. Amanda, then still a non-practising solicitor, was invited by Lord Justice Chadwick to represent the University as advocate. Lord Neuberger who was on the board at the University told Amanda that there was a very low chance of success in the case. However, the application succeeded – to Lord Neuberger’s and to the University’s delight. It was, she says, an ‘amazingly gratifying’ experience.
Amanda had not even realised until 2019 that the QC competition was open to solicitor-advocates with higher rights of audience (and she intended to make this fact much better known in future). But that was only days before that year’s competition closed, so she deferred her application until 2020. She was determined to put in her best possible application. Like several successful women applicants profiled in this series over the years, Amanda only intended to give the competition one shot. It was, in her view, too demanding and time-consuming a process to repeat. She would advise future applicants to be certain that they were professionally ready to apply for silk – and that they were prepared for the hard work, and probably stress, that the process would entail.
Amanda had not thought that she had had much chance of succeeding in the QC competition because her experience was ‘too different’. In particular, while her cases were highly complex, she had very little cross-examination experience. However, Amanda – who admits to a great love for metaphor – built up her confidence by reminding herself that she ‘would be walking through the same door as all the other applicants. I will have simply arrived by a different mode of transport.’ It was down to her to demonstrate her advocacy credentials through her application and through her interview performance – when she would be advocating on her own behalf.
She prepared for interview by chatting with other QCs she knew, who kindly gave their time, and by taking wider counsel and challenge. The truth was that, in a not dissimilar way to Barbara Calvert QC before her, Amanda had to accept that she was a ‘trailblazer’. There were no precedents or templates to use. There was no-one out there like Amanda as a blueprint for QC. Amanda realised that she would ‘have to be me’ and ‘speak with my own voice’ and hope that the system recognised her credentials for silk.
Amanda, however, greatly benefitted at interview from sessions which she had with in-house coaches. Amanda is passionate about diversity in its widest sense and something that she was thoroughly imbued in: it could not be otherwise having had such an inspiring role model as Barbara Calvert QC. So, the diversity competency offered no fears for her in her application and at interview. ‘Thought diversity’ was a concept that KPMG uses alongside more conventional diversity characteristics in creating highly effective teams.
Amanda reacquainted herself thoroughly with all her cases and judgments, fully prepared to talk about these with the Selection Panel interview pair. She also researched the backgrounds of the Panel members, having been inspired by a talk one Panel member had given which had covered the issue of how women advocates tended to apply later than their male counterparts when they were ‘more than ready’.
The questions Amanda was asked at interview were all about her and her multi-disciplinary practice, which she says, ‘hugely surprised me – in a good way’. None of the questions she had been expecting – based on sessions with a consultant used by other QC applicants – cropped up. It was far more tailored than that. After the interview, Amanda had no idea how well or otherwise she had done.
KPMG had been an obvious fit for Amanda as it had long been prioritising diversity. Again, using metaphor, Amanda thought of KPMG teams as machines made up of many cogs, wheels and parts that were all essential to the operation of the whole machine. KPMG Law teams were made up of highly diverse members, but not just in terms of the more obvious and protected characteristics but also less apparent aspects such as preferred learning styles, and in terms of problem-solvers, supporters, leaders, challengers and so forth.
Amanda is passionate about identifying and developing talent, being willing to look beyond compelling credentials such as impressive academic qualifications. She cites the example of a very bright black-heritage young man from a working-class background with acceptable A levels who was very interested in accountancy but not at all keen on attending university. KPMG were able to see the potential, and the young man is now a successful qualified KPMG accountant. These days, apprenticeships are available in KPMG, providing a route to qualification for individuals not wishing to, or financially unable to, adopt a traditional route.
Amanda was also able to talk at interview about KPMG’s sponsorship of City Academy Hackney (on which she was a director on the governing body) helping young people who were facing educational exclusion. Amanda is keenly interested in social mobility issues. She considers that many other diversity challenges (to do with ethnicity, gender etc.) would be hugely ameliorated if issues of social mobility were seriously addressed. She discusses how talented people from more disadvantaged backgrounds face a decision as to whether to adapt their identities (for example, the way in which they spoke and their accents) in order to progress in some professions, a process that might be thought of as being as analogous to ‘passing’. This has been a common theme in discussions with new QCs from less advantaged backgrounds profiled in this series. The end result can be pernicious in that the system produces a fairly homogenous-seeming type of lawyer who dresses and talks in a certain way (reinforced by legal jargon and stereotypical portrayal in drams), who does not seem much like ‘people like us’ to the next potential generation of lawyers.
Amanda has developed her career in KPMG working alongside a team of some 2,500 tax specialists with whom she can exchange ideas and spar with intellectually on issues and problems. Amanda was part of three-person partner team at KPMG Law, where her appointment to silk ‘means a massive amount’. Having an in-house tax silk means that internal clients ‘can simply phone me’ instead of having to instruct an external silk – which will add further to case team cohesion as she will be able to lead juniors in KPMG Law. Furthermore, the firm’s external FTSE 100 and other clients will have the benefit of the risk-protection provided by a QC which their Boards demand, without always having to instruct an external silk.
Amanda’s credo in life and work is to ‘pay it forward’ (as coined in the eponymous novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde). Amanda herself benefitted hugely from mentoring. So, for the future, a key aim for Amanda was to nurture and encourage a second and then a third silk from within the ranks of KPMG Law; and to help others beyond the company.
Amanda is working hard to encourage the professional bodies to do more to encourage advocates from non-barrister backgrounds to apply for silk, not just City firm arbitrators. Amanda has already reached out to the Bar Council and the Law Society. ‘Why not, if someone like me from a tax law background, QC solicitor-advocates from multi-disciplinary backgrounds like engineering, insurance or other technical areas?’ There needed to be more routes into advocacy other than the Bar, although Amanda recognised that that route would always be absolutely the right one for many people as it offered such flexibility. Thinking more broadly, Amanda pondered whether the legal profession and the society it works for might also benefit from being seen as a potential career change option for those from other professions that call for high-level advocacy skills, such as professional bloggers, and thought leaders.
And, finally, for those just setting out on, or perhaps contemplating the next step up, in their careers, Amanda says, ‘never be afraid to ask for help.’ It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help – ‘it is a sign of bravery, strength’. It was incumbent on leaders to show they too could be vulnerable; that they too were human.
Park Square Chambers, Leeds
Craig Hassall QC was one of 116 new silks appointed in 2021 at the silk ceremony delayed until 1 November 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions earlier in the year. Craig is head of the regulatory and public law team at PSQB, and his regulatory practice includes serious health and safety and healthcare cases, often involving fatalities. He appears for both regulators and potential defendants at numerous inquests, and his regulatory crime practice encompasses criminal proceedings brought by a wide range of other regulators in the areas of environmental crime, trading standards, fire safety and food safety.
Craig grew up in Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, his mother working as a maths teacher and his father was employed in the local steel industry. Craig attended Thomas Sumpter Comprehensive School in Scunthorpe where, unusually, he was able to study for GCSEs in Law, being tutored in his lunchtimes and evenings by the school’s head of music (who had an interest in law and was also a local JP). By the age of 14, Craig knew that he wanted to become a lawyer. After attending the John Leggott Sixth Form College in Scunthorpe, Craig secured a place at University College, Oxford, where he studied for his BA Jurisprudence. However, Craig nearly gave up his studies as he experienced what is now known as ‘imposter syndrome’ due to his background – or as Craig puts it, ‘I had a massive chip on my shoulder’. His father told Craig that if it was all too much, he should not hesitate to return home, and Craig says that this took the pressure off him, and he found that he was able to continue with his studies.
Craig’s confidence was also boosted when the results of his first exams showed that he was on a par with his peers from more privileged backgrounds. Craig got involved in the university Law Society as Master of Moots. In his final year, the prestigious City law firms turned up in the annual recruitment ‘milk round’ to ‘hoover up the cleverest Oxbridge Law graduates’ but Craig found no attraction in working in one of these big firms, feeling that his identity would be swallowed up in a ‘corporate black hole’. Instead, he set his sights at becoming a barrister – despite a career advisor suggesting he ‘should not bother’! And in 1999 Craig secured a place at the Inns of Court School of Law, working full time in pubs in Greenwich, London to pay for his accommodation and towards his fees (his grandparents paying the other half). Craig took mini pupillages in Leeds and was called to the bar in 1999. He was offered pupillages in Liverpool and Leeds but opted for the latter so that he could be closer to home.
During his pupillage, Craig did ‘a mixture of everything’ in crime and civil, narrowing to crime and family and then focusing just on crime. He did increasingly more crime cases that were financially linked such as benefit frauds and also linked to health and safety, the environment and trading standards. He meanwhile kept up more general criminal work. He gradually gravitated more towards prosecuting than defending (‘it’s just how it went’). By the time, Craig was ready to apply for QC, he was doing a mixture of general crime, financial crime and regulatory crime. As well as his busy senior-junior practice, Craig had also been appointed to three part-time judicial roles – chairing police disciplinary tribunals, as a Crown Court Recorder and chairing mental health tribunals. Craig considered that these roles would make him a more rounded candidate for silk. Having these positions also, coincidentally, helped Craig occupy some rare down-time from his day-to-day practice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, Craig had put himself forward for these judicial positions in case (and assuming he was successful in the QC competition) his silk practice did not take off, he would have these other career paths to fall back on. Indeed, the alternative to applying for QC could be tempting, that is, to pursue a full-time career on the bench with a steady, guaranteed income, sick pay, security and a pension. Applying for silk was a particularly risky proposition for a criminal specialist as there was a real chance that your silk practice would not take off and that you would not be able to depend on cases where senior-juniors were normally instructed. You could effectively ‘price yourself out of the market’ as successive reductions in legally aided work had reduced the number of silk certificates issued. So, Craig says, applying for silk had been one of the hardest decisions he had ever had to make. To his great relief, Craig’s silk practice had in the event taken off. Craig credits this in part to a perverse impact of the court restrictions (due to the C-19 pandemic) meaning that there was currently no shortage of work for the criminal bar because of the backlog, with priority being given to the most serious cases. At the time of this interview (in September 2021), Craig was briefed in a succession of murder trials coming up in the next few months. He had been ‘very busy indeed’.
Craig said that he was very fortunate to be appointed to QC after his first application. He says he had ‘expected to be knocked back’. In Craig’s view, one of the hardest aspects of applying for silk was the timing of your application, as you needed all the necessary substantial cases within the right three-years’ timeframe. ‘Where one case dropped out and another entered the picture everything changed a bit like a Rubik’s Cube’ with the potential assessors radically changing. Craig said that he had it in the back of his mind to apply for silk for a number of years. In April, ‘the stars all aligned’ with the required cases of substance in the past three years and the time suddenly available as his diary opened up due to the pandemic. You needed to set aside a good two weeks to complete the form and it helped a great deal that he had kept notes of his cases as he went along over recent years.
Craig said that there was nothing much really to say about being a gay man (with a partner and a teenage daughter); the challenges such as childcare and so forth were those of any busy working family man or woman. Perhaps he had been lucky in that respect, he says. The greatest diversity challenge that Craig had personally faced, he says, were those he had talked about earlier where at Oxford University he had had to overcome his sense of not belonging due to his regional, class and educational background. Since that time, in his professional life, Craig had come into contact with lords and the ‘cast of Skint’ and everybody in between. He says it is a great leveller, and you develop the self-confidence to deal with people based on their personal qualities, not on the basis of irrelevant characteristics such as class, accent and education.
When Craig was seriously considering applying for silk, he had approached his potential assessors in the same way as he had when he had applied to become a Recorder; namely to ask them, ‘would it be ridiculous?’ for him to apply! Clearly it had not been. Craig enjoyed and was a little amused by the frippery surrounding the silk ceremony which was due to take place on 1 November 2021. He said the details of the ceremony were (when we met) as yet still rather mysterious, and that visiting Ede and Ravenscroft for fittings for his silks had been like something out of ‘Harry Potter’. But he was greatly looking forward to the day, as it would be a great day out (and thank you) for his partner, daughter and his mother who had all been so supportive in his life and career and responsible ‘for keeping my feet on the ground’. Craig was also looking forward to the chambers party being held to celebrate his success.
Craig’s experience of the QC competition was very positive. He found the guidance to applicants to be extremely comprehensive, covering everything from completing the form to what to expect at the interview. It had been very reassuring and compared very favourably with the guidance available to candidates for judicial appointments. He found the interview testing but genuinely enjoyable. He had taken a few days to prepare for the interview and took a whole day out of a trial for the interview day to enable his mind to focus on the interview. The Panel interviewers were very well informed about him, his practice and cases, and clearly interested in what he had to say, keen for him to give of his best. It had been considerably less traumatic than he had expected, and much like a focussed chat. Craig was extremely grateful to QCA and the Panel for all its work in enabling the (COVID-19 compliant) interviews to take place face-to-face. To have done these by video-link would have been far more stressful. Using such links in courtroom contexts had been very challenging.
Essex Court Chambers, London
Anna Dilnot QC has a broad commercial and Chancery practice and specialises particularly in conflicts of law and commercial fraud, in addition to which she has extensive experience in international arbitration and courtroom advocacy. Anna was appointed Queen’s Counsel following the 2020 competition. But she never had any ‘grand plan’ to become a lawyer, much less to achieve the heady rank of silk. Anna says she came from an ‘ordinary background’ with no family or friend connections to the law, didn’t know any lawyers and was the first in her family to attend university.
Anna ‘fell into law by accident’, as she puts it: a mysterious external careers advisor looked at Anna’s results and reports and told Anna that she should aim to ‘do law’. That seemed like a bad bet to Anna, who knew nothing about it (and neither did her teachers) and in any case, she wanted to do English. However, she threw a couple of applications to ‘do law’ into her UCAS form, which were promptly rejected on the basis of ‘insufficient commitment’. Anna persuaded University College London to offer a place to do law and French law, and UCL did so on the condition of Anna achieving the highest grades across her A levels – which, to her great surprise, she did.
Following university, Anna would ideally have aimed from the outset to become a barrister, but that was not a viable option for her in 1998 when she graduated as there were no pupil awards. Attending Bar School would have necessitated taking on large debts – Anna had no wealthy parents to fall back on – and there was always a high risk that she would not secure a pupillage or a tenancy, even with good grades. Anna was not prepared to take that risk. Other factors also deterred Anna from seeking to becoming a barrister from the outset. She lacked the sort of background that could provide young people with realistic information about and connections to the Bar, and the essential confidence that it was achievable for her. Even at university, few among her cohort intended to seek pupillage, and those who did tended to have money behind them and connections with the Bar (generally family members who were barristers).
Anna therefore decided to set her sights on becoming a solicitor, and she was offered training contracts at several City law firms (who would pay for law school and pay her a salary during training), ending up at Stephenson Harwood, which seemed more interesting and more modern than some of the others (some had even threatened to make prospective trainees wear uniforms at law school). She enjoyed litigation, was terrible at transactional work, and so qualified into the commercial litigation department, where she was regularly sent over to the Bankruptcy Registry and Companies Court by a partner who was happy for her to do her own advocacy – which she learned by trial and error and by frequenting other courtrooms to watch senior advocates when she should have been working. Over time she acted increasingly in the role of junior and, after achieving solicitor-advocate status, led her own cases. Anna had nothing but praise for the support and superlative training she received at the law firm (and subsequently at Simmons & Simmons, which she joined in 2005). For example, Stephenson Harwood gave her the opportunity to work on one of the most demanding and exciting cases of her career in commercial litigation, in the alleged gerrymandering at Westminster Council by Dame Shirley Porter. Simmons & Simmons gave her the Prince Jefri Bolkiah case. This experience ignited Anna’s interest in commercial fraud, which she came to specialise in.
As Anna became more senior as a solicitor, it became clear to her that barristers got the ‘most interesting end of the work’, at least from her perspective, and had greater independence and strategic control. She reached a ‘crunch’ stage in her career when she either had to become a partner and commit to that career path or make the switch to the Bar – and while there are now several solicitors who are known advocates or QCs, that was not the case then. Being a partner would have meant increased involvement in marketing and business development, which did not greatly interest Anna and for which, she says, she had no real aptitude. Moreover, that work would increasingly have taken her away from the work she enjoyed, law and advocacy. However, switching to the Bar was a considerable risk. Her career as a solicitor was going well, she was allowed a considerable degree of latitude to do what she wanted, and at that time solicitors rarely transferred to the Bar. One senior partner described her decision as ‘quite mad’.
The transition was in fact fairly straightforward: the BSB exempted Anna from pupillage, she was offered a tenancy quickly and – once taken on as a tenant – was slotted in ‘higher up the board’ rather than as junior tenant, allowing her to conduct more complex cases immediately. Crucially, her cases followed her and the partners at her old law firms instructed her. Without that support, it would have been far more difficult.
Anna has always ‘done things in stages’ in her career, achieving goals (which often initially seemed out of reach) before thinking of new ones, and therefore had no thoughts about aiming to become a Queen’s Counsel when she was called to the Bar in 2008. It would have seemed like ‘a ludicrous ambition’ at that point: she had to focus on developing a practice and working hard to ensure she was at the standard of other juniors who had taken the traditional route to the Bar. Once she had achieved that, Anna would ‘very happily have remained as a successful senior junior’ for some time; she was in no rush to take silk. However, in a familiar story, her Head of Chambers, senior clerk and other colleagues said she should and coaxed (‘and gently nagged!’) her to apply.
On the one hand, Anna felt it might be too soon as, even including all her time as a solicitor, she had been a litigator for only 17 or so years. She was also aware that the application process – and the application form in particular – was highly demanding, and time-consuming. On the other hand, Anna was aware that she probably had the ‘right’ sort of cases in the relevant three-year period to make a viable application. She also recognised that she had reached a stage in her career where she was almost always leading cases or acting as sole advocate, up against silks, or being used interchangeably with them. Ultimately, Anna preferred to lead her own cases, and while oral advocacy can be the most difficult part of the job, it is also the most interesting and enjoyable (‘once you get going’).
So, Anna took the plunge and, somewhat to her surprise, was successful. But she did not find it an enjoyable process. It was well outside of her experience and comfort zone. She found the application form ‘awful’, but chambers’ silk colleagues were very kind in sharing their application forms with Anna, providing her with an idea on what the QC Selection Panel was looking for. Also, courtesy of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lack of other entertainment options, Anna had some time in the evenings to fill out the form.
The most daunting part of the whole application process for Anna was in asking prospective assessors whether they would be willing to provide her with an assessment (something many other profiled QCs, overwhelmingly women, have mentioned as angst-inducing). She was acutely aware that it was an onerous task for the judges (who were often asked to provide several such assessments each year) and Anna had to rustle up the courage to write to them. Anna was not at all confident that enough judges would be prepared to support her application. She had cases where her clients’ conduct had been very difficult, and it was natural to be concerned that ‘as the advocate you get blamed’. In the event, however, the rapid and positive responses to her letters made her feel a little better about that aspect of the process, and she realised that it had not been ‘an outrageous ask’. (Again, overwhelmingly reflecting the experience of others.)
Anna was so delighted at being invited to interview that she almost felt as though it did not matter whether she was ultimately successful; she simply felt that her decision to ‘bother’ the judges had been vindicated. As to the actual interview, Anna said she was out of practice, and the interview was very different to any she had experienced previously. But she quite enjoyed it. The interviewers seemed interested in what she had to say and there was ‘a bit of a debate’ rather than answers meeting silence. However, she thought some of the questions were really quite general. She had not previously analysed the role of a barrister or QC through the ‘competency based’ lens of the application process: ‘In your practice you do what works for you, based on experience’ rather than articulating or rationalising what that is. But the whole process, and the interview in particular ‘really made you think’.
Anna was aware that in some practice areas it could be quite difficult to evidence either oral or written advocacy due to relatively limited opportunities. She said it had been important in her career development, and especially so in the build up to making her QC application, to take cases that provided opportunities for oral advocacy, even where this meant turning down bigger, more prestigious, and more financially rewarding cases, as these would not provide the opportunities to get on her feet in court. You had to be at ‘the sharp end of the work’ and be prepared to take cases ‘inside your discomfort zone’, which besides providing opportunities for oral advocacy, could also provide exposure you to new areas of law and ways of thinking. In her practice area, large, lengthy and lucrative cases could be very tempting to take, but these ultimately could scupper your chances of taking silk if they did not get you into court. Fortunately, Anna’s chambers (and the commercial Bar more generally) were accommodating and increasingly encouraged juniors to do as much oral advocacy as possible.
Anna has not noticed any substantial change in her practice since taking silk. She has continued with her senior-junior cases while also picking up new QC briefs, and she has a pretty full diary up until the end of 2022. Anna recognised that she was fortunate in that in her specialism (commercial dispute resolution) the move up to silk did not entail such acute career and financial risks as were often involved for colleagues in other, particularly publicly funded, fields. Similarly, although Anna’s cases were complex and challenging, she felt that a sense of perspective was needed given that ordinarily they were fundamentally disputes about money – ‘nobody dies’ as she puts it: however important financially or strategically, Anna’s cases did not tend to involve the sorts of serious life-changing events that colleagues in different areas of the law handled every day.
Anna found that in her area of practice the changes on taking silk tended to be incremental, as one took on bigger, more legally complex, and more financially valuable cases. However, for Anna, taking silk had resulted in instructions which in all likelihood would not have been available to her as a senior junior, and her being appointed silk had vindicated (‘given a certain sense of relief to’) those solicitors who had instructed her over the past couple of years on important and difficult cases that could very easily have gone to a silk instead. Anna was deeply grateful for that vote of confidence and the work that she had received over the years from her instructing solicitors – and apologised ‘for being grumpy occasionally’!
Landmark Chambers, London
One of the 116 new silks appointed following the 2020 QC selection process, Gwion Lewis QC was called to the Bar in 2005. He specialises in public, planning, environmental, EU and public international law and was a member of the Attorney General’s ‘A’ Panel from 2016 to 2021 where he acted for the UK Government in the most complex cases. These included several that related to the interpretation of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Born and raised on Anglesey in north Wales, Gwion was one of the very few native Welsh speakers ever to have been appointed as a public law silk.
Among many academic achievements and honours, Gwion was a Scholar of Jesus College, Oxford, where he obtained a BA and a BCL (first class) in Jurisprudence and was awarded the Welson Prize for the most promising law student at Jesus College. Gwion also attended New York University as a US-UK Fulbright Scholar and has been a Visiting Scholar at the European University Institute in Florence. Gwion was first attracted to planning law as it appeared to be one of the most intellectually engaging areas within public law. And having studied the public law principles underpinning planning at university, it was during his pupillage at Landmark Chambers that Gwion really got to grips with the detail of planning law in England and Wales.
Gwion’s background has had a profound impact on his career and interests. He was born into a Welsh-speaking family and recalls starting to understand some English at the age of six. Gwion is a strong and passionate advocate for increasing the use of Welsh in the justice system. He points out that almost 30% of Wales’ three million population are able to speak Welsh, with substantial variations in the proportions of Welsh speakers across Wales. For example, in Gwynedd in north-west Wales, some 76% of people speak the language.
Gwion believes that the court system in Wales is an excellent supporter of the Welsh language, but despite this, the use of Welsh by parties and witnesses is still relatively limited, particularly in the higher courts. In Gwion’s experience, many Welsh speakers who use the court service believe (wrongly) that their case will take longer if they want to use the Welsh language; others believe (again wrongly) that their spoken and written Welsh might not be ‘good enough’ to use in the formal setting of a court. Gwion considers that there is much work to be done to give people confidence to use the Welsh language in the court system. He regularly notifies courts and tribunals across Wales of his wish to use the Welsh language during hearings and the request is always facilitated without question.
As a proud Welshman, Gwion was honoured and delighted to have appeared for the Welsh Ministers in the first case to be heard by the Administrative Court in Cardiff in 2009. In 2014, he became the first advocate in history to conduct a High Court trial entirely through the medium of Welsh. Gwion’s activism and advocacy for the Welsh language extends beyond his legal career. In 2015, he was presented with the coveted BAFTA Wales award for ‘Best Breakthrough’ for presenting a television documentary on the Welsh civil rights movement. In 2017, Gwion was appointed to a three-year term as a member of the Welsh Government’s Welsh Language Partnership Council, set up to advise the Welsh Ministers on matters relating to the Welsh language.
During his career, Gwion has not received mentoring in a formal sense, but he has benefitted greatly from working alongside some highly inspiring legal figures. In his first year of practice, Gwion was appointed junior counsel for the Crossrail project, led by Landmark silks David Elvin QC, Nathalie Lieven QC and Tim Mould QC. Gwion says he picked up most of what he knows about effective advocacy from observing those three silks in action.
Gwion felt ready to apply for silk at a relatively early stage in his advocacy career, being of just 15 years’ call in 2020. He had thought he would need to wait a year or two more as he might be considered to lack sufficient experience. But the COVID-19 pandemic meant that Gwion unexpectedly had time available to make an application for silk – which he was aware would be a time-consuming exercise. Crucially, he also found himself with an ideal run of ‘substantial’ cases. He felt that he could elicit the necessary evidence of excellence across the competencies, so decided to apply despite his earlier misgivings. Not having a long lead-up to the competition to make formal preparations, such as populating an early draft of the form, was not a drawback as Gwion had all the necessary information on his cases to hand.
Gwion did not seek assistance from outside consultants with the application process. He felt strongly that applicants should have the confidence to apply for silk without having to incur large fees on external assistance. Gwion considered it important to use his own words on the form and at interview. He did, however, appreciate why some applicants might seek some assistance with competency-based interviewing skills as this could be something of an unknown. Gwion found the interview a positive experience; the questions, answers and follow-ups all flowed naturally from the application form. He felt that the interviewers were interested ‘in the real me’. This was especially evident in the section on diversity, where rather than focussing on issues relating to gender, ethnicity and disability, the interviewers homed in on Gwion’s knowledge, understanding and proactivity in language rights and the place of the Welsh language in the court system.
It greatly assisted Gwion at interview that his practice had been broad in recent years and that he had been willing to tackle new areas of law, such as intellectual property law, when these had arisen. This was especially useful when seeking to demonstrate the oral advocacy competency where Gwion could call on extensive experience of cross-examining experts in various tribunal settings. Gwion’s approach throughout his practice had been to accept every instruction for which he had capacity, even those which initially appeared unexciting on paper. In Gwion’s experience, many such cases developed in unexpected ways that directly went to demonstrating one or more of the competencies for silk. He believed that he extracted the best evidence of his readiness for silk from his less high-profile cases.
Gwion was delighted and honoured to become one of ‘Her Majesty’s Queen’s Counsel Learned in Law’. More than anything, Gwion hoped that his appointment would encourage all those embarking on a legal career in Wales to give serious consideration to a public law practice to meet the increasing demand for legal services in Wales as a result of devolution.
Guildhall Chambers, Bristol
One of the new silks appointed following the 2020 QC selection process, Ray Tully QC is a heavyweight criminal law and sports law specialist in Guildhall Chambers, Bristol, where he first put down his roots over 30 years ago. Ray’s parents moved from Dublin to Oxford with his older brothers before Ray was born. They lived initially in a caravan, with no running water, so when the opportunity arose for a terraced council house in the (then) newly constructed Blackbird Leys Estate in Oxford, this represented a significant step up in the quality of family life. Ray’s father worked as a painter and decorator and his mother was a cleaner and school ‘dinner lady’.
Ray attended a local state school and had always thought that he would leave school when he was 15. However, his eldest brother, some 15 years his senior, saw the potential in Ray and was keen for him to stay on at school to take A levels and hopefully go on to university. His brother had the wisdom to appeal to ‘sports mad’ Ray’s sense of challenge and bet Ray that he would not attend sixth form and go on to university. Ray applied to Keele University because it had the best football pitches. Indeed, so keen was Ray to get a place at Keele that he put it down twice on his UCCA form! He studied history and politics and captained the football club. Ray had thought that he would go on to be a PE and history teacher and had secured a place on the post-graduate certificate in education (PGCE) course at Liverpool University.
In his last term at Keele, however, Ray’s good friend (who was captain of the University Rugby club) persuaded Ray to think about a career in the law, suspecting that Ray would have a natural flair for advocacy. This was not an area Ray had had any contact with and certainly not one he had thought of in terms of a career. But ‘it was a “light bulb moment”’. Ray had initially thought that it was too late for a change of tack to do law but after doing some research discovered he could apply for a conversion course.
Ray’s parents had by this time moved to Nottingham, where the local authority provided Ray with education and maintenance grants, including for his post-graduate year on the law conversion course at City University, London. Before starting the latter, Ray took a year out to save towards Bar school and for living in London, working as a painter and decorator and then as a runner for a firm of solicitors and as a research assistant to an MP. Ray still would not have had sufficient funds, so he researched charitable educational bodies and was extremely fortunate to be given a generous award from the Skinners’ Company. This, along with the local authority grants and a grant from The Inner Temple, was ‘life changing’. Ray doubts very much he could have afforded to become a barrister in today’s world of teaching fees and loans.
At Bar school, Ray became friendly with a student from the southwest, who was aware that Ray did not wish to remain in London and persuaded Ray to apply for a pupillage in Bristol. Even before Ray learned he had been accepted at chambers following his interview there, Ray knew he had made the right choice of location.
Ray says he had ‘by and large’ made his career at the Bar, but at the 10-year stage he took some time away to assist one of his brothers with his business in Nottingham at a crucial time. ‘Colleagues thought I was mad’, says Ray, ‘but I had no qualms about taking the break’. He ended up being away from the Bar for over three years. The company which bought out the family firm had wanted to keep Ray on, but his heart was set on returning to the Bar.
Opportunities existed in London chambers, but Ray was determined to return to Bristol, and applied to Guildhall Chambers (‘the best set in Bristol’), which he joined in late 2001. Guildhall Chambers was unusual in that in was a set with specialist teams (and, later, Ray headed up the criminal team). Ray had wanted to be a criminal specialist from his time at Bar School when he recalls visiting Marylebone Magistrates Court to observe the court in action, ‘where all life was paraded before you, from pickpockets to protesters’. For Ray, the job has always been about advocacy in front of a jury; ‘why otherwise go to the Bar?’
The Bar represented something of a cultural shock for someone coming from a working-class background. For example, in the robing room as a pupil, most of barristers were super-confident ex-public-school boys with very different accents to Ray’s own (and, indeed, at the end of Ray’s first six months he was told that he was doing extremely well, but should think seriously about getting elocution lessons – he never did!). Ray considers that the Bar has progressed considerably in terms of diversity since he was called, but that there is still a long way to go, including improved social mobility and educational opportunity.
Ray considers that he ‘could and should’ have made a serious pitch for silk some ten years earlier than he did, but for several reasons he ‘sat on my application’, not least because of government-imposed austerity and cuts to publicly funded work made the step up to silk an uncertain one, professionally and financially. Certificates for silks have become increasingly rare in crime. At one time silks did rape cases, but these days even murders do not always get a silk certificate. The application to step up to silk entailed ‘a leap of faith’, with a potential initial drop in income.
But Ray had got to a stage in his career where he knew he would regret it if he did not apply for QC and was increasingly being encouraged to do so by his peers and judges. He delayed a few more years: he knew that when he did make the application, he would give it 100% and be fully engaged in the process, which could be highly demanding, especially in terms of a barrister’s most precious commodity, time.
The ‘nudge’ came when a big case listed for six to eight weeks in Newcastle for February/March 2020 was adjourned because of disclosure issues. Unexpectedly, Ray had time to dedicate to his QC application. Ray was aware that he was in a very good position as he had had some complex, serious and very demanding cases in his ‘three-year application window’, notably the high-profile and sensitive ‘Carl Beech’ case which took up to 10 weeks in 2019. And, with the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in place, and the Newcastle case adjourned, Ray had all of March freed up. Ray said completing the application form was ‘taxing and stretched me in every conceivable way’. But he had plenty of evidence to call on for his form. Ray was confident that this would be corroborated and enhanced by his assessors who viewed him as a respected and highly experienced senior-junior, one whom QCs treated as ‘trusted co-pilot’.
It was daunting having to advocate for himself in front of the QC Selection Panel interviewers rather than on behalf of someone else in front of a judge and jury. For those aspiring to silk, Ray said it was important to recall that what you had achieved in your career was based on merit. As a barrister you tended to deflect praise and avoid anything that might be seen as ‘bragging’ but at the interview it was vital not to shy away from talking about your achievements and professional recognition. The QC interview was the first interview Ray had had since he took pupillage. Ray had thoroughly researched the process and went into the interview ‘fluent in the language of the competition’ so that he would ‘come across as a round peg for the QC round hole’. He had some professional assistance on competency-based interviewing. The interview ‘flew by’ and Ray said that he ‘quite enjoyed it’. It was important to keep in mind that if you were in front of the interviewers you were there on merit, and this gave you confidence. There were ‘no trips or tricks’ involved in the questioning, and he was given the best opportunity to provide all the information which the Panel sought.
The COVID-19 pandemic had had a major impact on his specialist area, with courts for example being still unable to cope with large multi-handed criminal trials involving a dozen or more barristers and half a dozen defendants, even using live-links across three different courts. Much greater resources were needed if the criminal justice system was to get back to anything like normal within a reasonable time – and those resources did not seem likely to be forthcoming.
Ray’s chambers had put on a spoof QC awards ceremony for him back in the Spring (when the real thing would normally have taken place) and that had been ‘affectionate and great fun’. But – when this interview took place – Ray was greatly looking forward to the official ceremony, scheduled for November 2021.
Deans Court Chambers, Manchester
Sophie Cartwright QC, who is a recognised leader in administrative and public law, inquests and inquiries, professional discipline and health and safety, was appointed to silk in the 2020 competition. Sophie – who also sits as a Recorder in the Crown Court on the Northern Circuit and as an Assistant Coroner – was raised in Lancashire and attended St Augustine’s Roman Catholic High School in Billington and took her A levels at Blackburn College. With no familial connections with the legal profession, Sophie discovered her vocation when a friend of her father arranged for Sophie to do work experience with Tony Cross QC (now a Circuit Judge). This was a life-changing encounter: ‘Tony provided incredible encouragement and kindness’, an experience ‘replicated many times and so characteristic of the Bar’, said Sophie.
Sophie secured a place in Warwick University’s law department to study for her LLB, and this was followed by attendance at the Inns of Court School of Law and studies for a master’s degree in health and safety and environmental law at Salford university. Sophie secured her pupillage at Deans Court, Manchester in 1998, where she has remained ever since. Stuart Denney QC was her pupil supervisor and has been another mentor and friend to her throughout her career. Originally working on criminal cases, Sophie began to specialise in public law, regulatory and disciplinary proceedings and inquests and public inquiries. Sophie’s practice now also encompasses judicial reviews, health and social care regulation and cases in the Court of Protection.
Among her many notable cases, Sophie served as counsel to the Anthony Grainger Inquiry concerning his fatal shooting in 2012. For the last three years, Sophie has ‘had the very great privilege’ of serving as counsel to Sir John Saunders, Chairman of the Manchester Arena Inquiry investigating the deaths of the victims of the 2017 terrorist attack. Sophie considered it to be an ‘enormous privilege’ to work with so many inspiring fellow practitioners, professionals and, particularly, the families of the victims of the terrorist attack.
In more recent years, in the build up to her QC application, inquests and inquiries have taken centre stage in Sophie’s career. There have been so many inspiring, kind, and supportive people in all aspects of her practice, but in inquest and inquiry work Sophie would give special mention to HHJ Thomas Teague QC, now Chief Coroner of England and Wales, his predecessor HHJ Mark Lucraft QC (now Recorder of London), Sir John Saunders and HHJ Clement Goldstone QC.
The silk ‘badge’ was ‘always in the background as an aspiration, spanning your career’, said Sophie. For her, it became a realistic seeming ambition when judges and highly respected professional colleagues – including opponents – began ‘sowing the necessary seeds’ through comments regarding her suitability for the ‘step up’.
To those thinking about applying for silk at some future point, Sophie strongly advised that you become fully conversant with the QC selection process. In her experience the process was clear, but it was also quite complex and highly demanding. In the interview, for example, you had to evidence your excellence within a strict time-limit. You should thoroughly familiarise yourself with the application form and the ‘extremely helpful’ QCA guidance, even quite early in your career. Against that knowledge, you needed to begin thinking strategically about your career choices e.g., in terms of the various sub specialisms within your practice area and the cases you took on in terms of their substance (as defined by the process) and opportunities that they seemed likely to provide in terms of demonstrating the competencies to the exacting standard of excellence, and in terms of potential assessors. This enabled you to build up a portfolio over the years but bearing in mind that the focus would be on your most recent cases. When you came to apply, it was a moment of deep self-reflection. You had to be totally honest with yourself regarding your suitability for the demands of the competition. Sophie said you needed to be certain that QC was not only something you could realistically aspire to, but also something you really wanted. Taking silk was a huge honour but it was not risk-free in terms of the shift you needed to make from having an established busy senior-junior practice to building a silk practice.
In your preparations it was vital that you thought closely about all of the competencies not just those concerned with the law and advocacy. The Selection Panel, profession and society at large wanted ‘fully rounded silk practitioners in a diverse society’. Sophie said that your dealings with people – colleagues, judges, practitioners (not least your opponents), clients and all those you came into contact in the work context such as court staff – had to be evidenced as excellent for you to succeed in the competition.
She had been, as usual, extremely busy on the Manchester Arena Inquiry when, in December 2020, Sophie received the advanced notice from QCA that she had been successful in the QC Competition. Sophie received congratulations from across the profession – with one very senior female judge particularly celebrating the fact the Sophie and other many other women had done so well in the competition. Sophie was ‘especially and particularly moved’ by the congratulations she received from the families of the victims of the Manchester Arena terrorist attack, the people who Sophie had the great privilege of working closely with since 2019. The families made for Sophie a desk plaque with ‘Sophie Cartwright QC’ to mark the occasion, which she will always treasure. It was ‘such a humbling honour working with and supporting the families’.
Sophie said that it had only been possible to juggle her extremely busy legal career with the demands of being a mother because of ‘the incredible support’ of her husband Ed Morgan (also a QC appointed in the same competition) and family and friends. Sophie said she owed a massive debt of gratitude to her friend Pat Taylor. At a time when Sophie was experiencing some qualms about her continuing ability to ‘juggle’ home and work life, Pat made the remarkably kind offer to look after Sophie’s children so as to enable Sophie to return to her career. Very sadly, Pat died shortly before Sophie was made silk at the delayed (November 2021) QC swearing-in ceremony in the Palace of Westminster. It was a wonderful day, said Sophie, but also one tinged with sadness, thinking about Pat and how her friendship, encouragement, and incredible practical support had enabled her to return to the Bar and go on to take silk.
Sophie was extremely grateful for the work which Eleanor Platt QC had done over the years updating the list of all women appointed QCs since Helena Normanton KC and Rose Heilbron KC were the first two women to be made silk in 1949 (Eleanor Platt QC was the 19th woman silk in 1982). As at 2021 (before the 2021 results were announced), 530 women had been made silks, Sophie being number 516. Boosting these numbers had been an additional spur for Sophie in her decision to apply for silk, hoping that she might inspire other women to aspire to becoming a QC. While the proportion of women to men practicing as QCs had steadily increased over the years (and women applicants were consistently more successful than their male counterparts in the competition) – in absolute terms, the numbers of women QCs was still small. There were currently 311 women practicing silks compared with 1514 men. There was still a long way to go, said Sophie.
Sophie greatly admired the QC Selection Panel and the process. She liked its transparency and fairness and the way it tested and stretched you, and made you reflect deeply on yourself and your career. That half the Selection Panel’s membership came from high-level non-legal backgrounds and professions was particularly powerful, with its membership changing dynamically over time. Sophie was keen that her thanks to the Selection Panel and QCA staff were recorded, recognising that their work must have been particularly demanding during the pandemic. She had ‘no criticisms at all.’
Peter is Policy Adviser to the King's Counsel Selection Panel in the KCA Secretariat. He was previously a senior civil servant in DEFRA, freelance consultant on EU issues and a counsellor.
KPMG Law, London
Amanda Brown QC, a tax disputes lawyer and partner at KPMG Law, was appointed to silk in 2021. She becomes one of a tiny number of solicitor-advocates who have been appointed to silk who are not international arbitrators, coming as she does from a multi-disciplinary practice. As a higher-rights qualified lawyer, Amanda has appeared as an advocate at all tribunal and court levels having been the first lawyer in a UK accountancy firm to appear in the European Court of Justice. Amanda is also a CEDR accredited mediator and in 2014 she was appointed as a Fee Paid Judge in the First Tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber). Amanda is KPMG Law’s first QC.
The daughter of a civil engineer and a housewife, Amanda spent her infant school years in Tehran, where her father worked as part of a small ‘friendly and tight-knit’ engineering company. On her parents return to the UK, Amanda attended state schools. Her ambition to become an advocate dates back to when she was just four years old, inspired as ‘tiny dot’ (Amanda is still short of stature) by Barbara Calvert QC, the wife of John Calvert, another civil engineer. Amanda’s ‘brilliant and talented’ mum made Amanda a perfect little black gown and, using her quilting skills, a little barrister’s wig. Amanda used a large cardboard box as the witness stand to cross-examine her sister.
Barbara Calvert QC had a huge influence on Amanda’s choice of career – and also that of many other young barristers, particularly women. In 1974, Barbara had set up her own chambers, Four Brick Court, to help those starting out, becoming the first female head of chambers. In 1986, she became the first female QC to be appointed a full-time chair of Industrial Tribunals and, in 1977, Barbara helped set up new chambers (now 1 Pump Court) for young barristers starting out. Barbara died in 2015 at the age of 89 but had suffered from Alzheimer’s and Amanda says that she lost her ‘mentor and role model’ some years before then.
Amanda says she briefly flirted with the idea of becoming an RAF fighter pilot when she was 14 but she generally kept her career sights on the law. However, she kept her options open by studying for a joint accountancy and law degree at Manchester University, where ‘I discovered just how good I was at, and loved, numbers.’ Amanda was torn and rather tempted to become an accountant. However, Barbara Culvert QC told Amanda that it was not an either/or decision and that she could successfully combine both strands – law and accountancy – in a career. Barbara persuaded Amanda to begin her career in the law, not least because this would be the harder option to return to later in life (Barbara herself had been called to the Bar at the age of 35). And instead of applying for Bar school, Amanda was encouraged to initially qualify as a solicitor: Barbara had the foresight to see that it would not be so long before high-calibre solicitors would be permitted to apply for higher court audience rights. Also, initially becoming a solicitor would have the attraction of security of employment (in contrast to the largely self-employed Bar). Amanda believes that even in 2021, job security remains a bigger consideration for female advocates than for their male counterparts.
Amanda qualified as a solicitor at Eversheds in 1993. An opportunity immediately arose at what was then HM Customs & Excise for Amanda to combine accountancy and law working as an advocate in relation to tax appeals, where she was soon marked out as a talented advocate who was given increasingly complex cases to lead on. Amanda seized another opportunity in 1999 when she successfully applied for a position at KPMG, where she set up the tax disputes practice. At that time Amanda was only allowed rights of audience as an advocate at the first-tier tribunals. However, in 2006, Amanda had a case representing University of Arts London, in an application to ‘leapfrog’ to the Court of Appeal. Amanda, then still a non-practising solicitor, was invited by Lord Justice Chadwick to represent the University as advocate. Lord Neuberger who was on the board at the University told Amanda that there was a very low chance of success in the case. However, the application succeeded – to Lord Neuberger’s and to the University’s delight. It was, she says, an ‘amazingly gratifying’ experience.
Amanda had not even realised until 2019 that the QC competition was open to solicitor-advocates with higher rights of audience (and she intended to make this fact much better known in future). But that was only days before that year’s competition closed, so she deferred her application until 2020. She was determined to put in her best possible application. Like several successful women applicants profiled in this series over the years, Amanda only intended to give the competition one shot. It was, in her view, too demanding and time-consuming a process to repeat. She would advise future applicants to be certain that they were professionally ready to apply for silk – and that they were prepared for the hard work, and probably stress, that the process would entail.
Amanda had not thought that she had had much chance of succeeding in the QC competition because her experience was ‘too different’. In particular, while her cases were highly complex, she had very little cross-examination experience. However, Amanda – who admits to a great love for metaphor – built up her confidence by reminding herself that she ‘would be walking through the same door as all the other applicants. I will have simply arrived by a different mode of transport.’ It was down to her to demonstrate her advocacy credentials through her application and through her interview performance – when she would be advocating on her own behalf.
She prepared for interview by chatting with other QCs she knew, who kindly gave their time, and by taking wider counsel and challenge. The truth was that, in a not dissimilar way to Barbara Calvert QC before her, Amanda had to accept that she was a ‘trailblazer’. There were no precedents or templates to use. There was no-one out there like Amanda as a blueprint for QC. Amanda realised that she would ‘have to be me’ and ‘speak with my own voice’ and hope that the system recognised her credentials for silk.
Amanda, however, greatly benefitted at interview from sessions which she had with in-house coaches. Amanda is passionate about diversity in its widest sense and something that she was thoroughly imbued in: it could not be otherwise having had such an inspiring role model as Barbara Calvert QC. So, the diversity competency offered no fears for her in her application and at interview. ‘Thought diversity’ was a concept that KPMG uses alongside more conventional diversity characteristics in creating highly effective teams.
Amanda reacquainted herself thoroughly with all her cases and judgments, fully prepared to talk about these with the Selection Panel interview pair. She also researched the backgrounds of the Panel members, having been inspired by a talk one Panel member had given which had covered the issue of how women advocates tended to apply later than their male counterparts when they were ‘more than ready’.
The questions Amanda was asked at interview were all about her and her multi-disciplinary practice, which she says, ‘hugely surprised me – in a good way’. None of the questions she had been expecting – based on sessions with a consultant used by other QC applicants – cropped up. It was far more tailored than that. After the interview, Amanda had no idea how well or otherwise she had done.
KPMG had been an obvious fit for Amanda as it had long been prioritising diversity. Again, using metaphor, Amanda thought of KPMG teams as machines made up of many cogs, wheels and parts that were all essential to the operation of the whole machine. KPMG Law teams were made up of highly diverse members, but not just in terms of the more obvious and protected characteristics but also less apparent aspects such as preferred learning styles, and in terms of problem-solvers, supporters, leaders, challengers and so forth.
Amanda is passionate about identifying and developing talent, being willing to look beyond compelling credentials such as impressive academic qualifications. She cites the example of a very bright black-heritage young man from a working-class background with acceptable A levels who was very interested in accountancy but not at all keen on attending university. KPMG were able to see the potential, and the young man is now a successful qualified KPMG accountant. These days, apprenticeships are available in KPMG, providing a route to qualification for individuals not wishing to, or financially unable to, adopt a traditional route.
Amanda was also able to talk at interview about KPMG’s sponsorship of City Academy Hackney (on which she was a director on the governing body) helping young people who were facing educational exclusion. Amanda is keenly interested in social mobility issues. She considers that many other diversity challenges (to do with ethnicity, gender etc.) would be hugely ameliorated if issues of social mobility were seriously addressed. She discusses how talented people from more disadvantaged backgrounds face a decision as to whether to adapt their identities (for example, the way in which they spoke and their accents) in order to progress in some professions, a process that might be thought of as being as analogous to ‘passing’. This has been a common theme in discussions with new QCs from less advantaged backgrounds profiled in this series. The end result can be pernicious in that the system produces a fairly homogenous-seeming type of lawyer who dresses and talks in a certain way (reinforced by legal jargon and stereotypical portrayal in drams), who does not seem much like ‘people like us’ to the next potential generation of lawyers.
Amanda has developed her career in KPMG working alongside a team of some 2,500 tax specialists with whom she can exchange ideas and spar with intellectually on issues and problems. Amanda was part of three-person partner team at KPMG Law, where her appointment to silk ‘means a massive amount’. Having an in-house tax silk means that internal clients ‘can simply phone me’ instead of having to instruct an external silk – which will add further to case team cohesion as she will be able to lead juniors in KPMG Law. Furthermore, the firm’s external FTSE 100 and other clients will have the benefit of the risk-protection provided by a QC which their Boards demand, without always having to instruct an external silk.
Amanda’s credo in life and work is to ‘pay it forward’ (as coined in the eponymous novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde). Amanda herself benefitted hugely from mentoring. So, for the future, a key aim for Amanda was to nurture and encourage a second and then a third silk from within the ranks of KPMG Law; and to help others beyond the company.
Amanda is working hard to encourage the professional bodies to do more to encourage advocates from non-barrister backgrounds to apply for silk, not just City firm arbitrators. Amanda has already reached out to the Bar Council and the Law Society. ‘Why not, if someone like me from a tax law background, QC solicitor-advocates from multi-disciplinary backgrounds like engineering, insurance or other technical areas?’ There needed to be more routes into advocacy other than the Bar, although Amanda recognised that that route would always be absolutely the right one for many people as it offered such flexibility. Thinking more broadly, Amanda pondered whether the legal profession and the society it works for might also benefit from being seen as a potential career change option for those from other professions that call for high-level advocacy skills, such as professional bloggers, and thought leaders.
And, finally, for those just setting out on, or perhaps contemplating the next step up, in their careers, Amanda says, ‘never be afraid to ask for help.’ It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help – ‘it is a sign of bravery, strength’. It was incumbent on leaders to show they too could be vulnerable; that they too were human.
Park Square Chambers, Leeds
Craig Hassall QC was one of 116 new silks appointed in 2021 at the silk ceremony delayed until 1 November 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions earlier in the year. Craig is head of the regulatory and public law team at PSQB, and his regulatory practice includes serious health and safety and healthcare cases, often involving fatalities. He appears for both regulators and potential defendants at numerous inquests, and his regulatory crime practice encompasses criminal proceedings brought by a wide range of other regulators in the areas of environmental crime, trading standards, fire safety and food safety.
Craig grew up in Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, his mother working as a maths teacher and his father was employed in the local steel industry. Craig attended Thomas Sumpter Comprehensive School in Scunthorpe where, unusually, he was able to study for GCSEs in Law, being tutored in his lunchtimes and evenings by the school’s head of music (who had an interest in law and was also a local JP). By the age of 14, Craig knew that he wanted to become a lawyer. After attending the John Leggott Sixth Form College in Scunthorpe, Craig secured a place at University College, Oxford, where he studied for his BA Jurisprudence. However, Craig nearly gave up his studies as he experienced what is now known as ‘imposter syndrome’ due to his background – or as Craig puts it, ‘I had a massive chip on my shoulder’. His father told Craig that if it was all too much, he should not hesitate to return home, and Craig says that this took the pressure off him, and he found that he was able to continue with his studies.
Craig’s confidence was also boosted when the results of his first exams showed that he was on a par with his peers from more privileged backgrounds. Craig got involved in the university Law Society as Master of Moots. In his final year, the prestigious City law firms turned up in the annual recruitment ‘milk round’ to ‘hoover up the cleverest Oxbridge Law graduates’ but Craig found no attraction in working in one of these big firms, feeling that his identity would be swallowed up in a ‘corporate black hole’. Instead, he set his sights at becoming a barrister – despite a career advisor suggesting he ‘should not bother’! And in 1999 Craig secured a place at the Inns of Court School of Law, working full time in pubs in Greenwich, London to pay for his accommodation and towards his fees (his grandparents paying the other half). Craig took mini pupillages in Leeds and was called to the bar in 1999. He was offered pupillages in Liverpool and Leeds but opted for the latter so that he could be closer to home.
During his pupillage, Craig did ‘a mixture of everything’ in crime and civil, narrowing to crime and family and then focusing just on crime. He did increasingly more crime cases that were financially linked such as benefit frauds and also linked to health and safety, the environment and trading standards. He meanwhile kept up more general criminal work. He gradually gravitated more towards prosecuting than defending (‘it’s just how it went’). By the time, Craig was ready to apply for QC, he was doing a mixture of general crime, financial crime and regulatory crime. As well as his busy senior-junior practice, Craig had also been appointed to three part-time judicial roles – chairing police disciplinary tribunals, as a Crown Court Recorder and chairing mental health tribunals. Craig considered that these roles would make him a more rounded candidate for silk. Having these positions also, coincidentally, helped Craig occupy some rare down-time from his day-to-day practice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, Craig had put himself forward for these judicial positions in case (and assuming he was successful in the QC competition) his silk practice did not take off, he would have these other career paths to fall back on. Indeed, the alternative to applying for QC could be tempting, that is, to pursue a full-time career on the bench with a steady, guaranteed income, sick pay, security and a pension. Applying for silk was a particularly risky proposition for a criminal specialist as there was a real chance that your silk practice would not take off and that you would not be able to depend on cases where senior-juniors were normally instructed. You could effectively ‘price yourself out of the market’ as successive reductions in legally aided work had reduced the number of silk certificates issued. So, Craig says, applying for silk had been one of the hardest decisions he had ever had to make. To his great relief, Craig’s silk practice had in the event taken off. Craig credits this in part to a perverse impact of the court restrictions (due to the C-19 pandemic) meaning that there was currently no shortage of work for the criminal bar because of the backlog, with priority being given to the most serious cases. At the time of this interview (in September 2021), Craig was briefed in a succession of murder trials coming up in the next few months. He had been ‘very busy indeed’.
Craig said that he was very fortunate to be appointed to QC after his first application. He says he had ‘expected to be knocked back’. In Craig’s view, one of the hardest aspects of applying for silk was the timing of your application, as you needed all the necessary substantial cases within the right three-years’ timeframe. ‘Where one case dropped out and another entered the picture everything changed a bit like a Rubik’s Cube’ with the potential assessors radically changing. Craig said that he had it in the back of his mind to apply for silk for a number of years. In April, ‘the stars all aligned’ with the required cases of substance in the past three years and the time suddenly available as his diary opened up due to the pandemic. You needed to set aside a good two weeks to complete the form and it helped a great deal that he had kept notes of his cases as he went along over recent years.
Craig said that there was nothing much really to say about being a gay man (with a partner and a teenage daughter); the challenges such as childcare and so forth were those of any busy working family man or woman. Perhaps he had been lucky in that respect, he says. The greatest diversity challenge that Craig had personally faced, he says, were those he had talked about earlier where at Oxford University he had had to overcome his sense of not belonging due to his regional, class and educational background. Since that time, in his professional life, Craig had come into contact with lords and the ‘cast of Skint’ and everybody in between. He says it is a great leveller, and you develop the self-confidence to deal with people based on their personal qualities, not on the basis of irrelevant characteristics such as class, accent and education.
When Craig was seriously considering applying for silk, he had approached his potential assessors in the same way as he had when he had applied to become a Recorder; namely to ask them, ‘would it be ridiculous?’ for him to apply! Clearly it had not been. Craig enjoyed and was a little amused by the frippery surrounding the silk ceremony which was due to take place on 1 November 2021. He said the details of the ceremony were (when we met) as yet still rather mysterious, and that visiting Ede and Ravenscroft for fittings for his silks had been like something out of ‘Harry Potter’. But he was greatly looking forward to the day, as it would be a great day out (and thank you) for his partner, daughter and his mother who had all been so supportive in his life and career and responsible ‘for keeping my feet on the ground’. Craig was also looking forward to the chambers party being held to celebrate his success.
Craig’s experience of the QC competition was very positive. He found the guidance to applicants to be extremely comprehensive, covering everything from completing the form to what to expect at the interview. It had been very reassuring and compared very favourably with the guidance available to candidates for judicial appointments. He found the interview testing but genuinely enjoyable. He had taken a few days to prepare for the interview and took a whole day out of a trial for the interview day to enable his mind to focus on the interview. The Panel interviewers were very well informed about him, his practice and cases, and clearly interested in what he had to say, keen for him to give of his best. It had been considerably less traumatic than he had expected, and much like a focussed chat. Craig was extremely grateful to QCA and the Panel for all its work in enabling the (COVID-19 compliant) interviews to take place face-to-face. To have done these by video-link would have been far more stressful. Using such links in courtroom contexts had been very challenging.
Essex Court Chambers, London
Anna Dilnot QC has a broad commercial and Chancery practice and specialises particularly in conflicts of law and commercial fraud, in addition to which she has extensive experience in international arbitration and courtroom advocacy. Anna was appointed Queen’s Counsel following the 2020 competition. But she never had any ‘grand plan’ to become a lawyer, much less to achieve the heady rank of silk. Anna says she came from an ‘ordinary background’ with no family or friend connections to the law, didn’t know any lawyers and was the first in her family to attend university.
Anna ‘fell into law by accident’, as she puts it: a mysterious external careers advisor looked at Anna’s results and reports and told Anna that she should aim to ‘do law’. That seemed like a bad bet to Anna, who knew nothing about it (and neither did her teachers) and in any case, she wanted to do English. However, she threw a couple of applications to ‘do law’ into her UCAS form, which were promptly rejected on the basis of ‘insufficient commitment’. Anna persuaded University College London to offer a place to do law and French law, and UCL did so on the condition of Anna achieving the highest grades across her A levels – which, to her great surprise, she did.
Following university, Anna would ideally have aimed from the outset to become a barrister, but that was not a viable option for her in 1998 when she graduated as there were no pupil awards. Attending Bar School would have necessitated taking on large debts – Anna had no wealthy parents to fall back on – and there was always a high risk that she would not secure a pupillage or a tenancy, even with good grades. Anna was not prepared to take that risk. Other factors also deterred Anna from seeking to becoming a barrister from the outset. She lacked the sort of background that could provide young people with realistic information about and connections to the Bar, and the essential confidence that it was achievable for her. Even at university, few among her cohort intended to seek pupillage, and those who did tended to have money behind them and connections with the Bar (generally family members who were barristers).
Anna therefore decided to set her sights on becoming a solicitor, and she was offered training contracts at several City law firms (who would pay for law school and pay her a salary during training), ending up at Stephenson Harwood, which seemed more interesting and more modern than some of the others (some had even threatened to make prospective trainees wear uniforms at law school). She enjoyed litigation, was terrible at transactional work, and so qualified into the commercial litigation department, where she was regularly sent over to the Bankruptcy Registry and Companies Court by a partner who was happy for her to do her own advocacy – which she learned by trial and error and by frequenting other courtrooms to watch senior advocates when she should have been working. Over time she acted increasingly in the role of junior and, after achieving solicitor-advocate status, led her own cases. Anna had nothing but praise for the support and superlative training she received at the law firm (and subsequently at Simmons & Simmons, which she joined in 2005). For example, Stephenson Harwood gave her the opportunity to work on one of the most demanding and exciting cases of her career in commercial litigation, in the alleged gerrymandering at Westminster Council by Dame Shirley Porter. Simmons & Simmons gave her the Prince Jefri Bolkiah case. This experience ignited Anna’s interest in commercial fraud, which she came to specialise in.
As Anna became more senior as a solicitor, it became clear to her that barristers got the ‘most interesting end of the work’, at least from her perspective, and had greater independence and strategic control. She reached a ‘crunch’ stage in her career when she either had to become a partner and commit to that career path or make the switch to the Bar – and while there are now several solicitors who are known advocates or QCs, that was not the case then. Being a partner would have meant increased involvement in marketing and business development, which did not greatly interest Anna and for which, she says, she had no real aptitude. Moreover, that work would increasingly have taken her away from the work she enjoyed, law and advocacy. However, switching to the Bar was a considerable risk. Her career as a solicitor was going well, she was allowed a considerable degree of latitude to do what she wanted, and at that time solicitors rarely transferred to the Bar. One senior partner described her decision as ‘quite mad’.
The transition was in fact fairly straightforward: the BSB exempted Anna from pupillage, she was offered a tenancy quickly and – once taken on as a tenant – was slotted in ‘higher up the board’ rather than as junior tenant, allowing her to conduct more complex cases immediately. Crucially, her cases followed her and the partners at her old law firms instructed her. Without that support, it would have been far more difficult.
Anna has always ‘done things in stages’ in her career, achieving goals (which often initially seemed out of reach) before thinking of new ones, and therefore had no thoughts about aiming to become a Queen’s Counsel when she was called to the Bar in 2008. It would have seemed like ‘a ludicrous ambition’ at that point: she had to focus on developing a practice and working hard to ensure she was at the standard of other juniors who had taken the traditional route to the Bar. Once she had achieved that, Anna would ‘very happily have remained as a successful senior junior’ for some time; she was in no rush to take silk. However, in a familiar story, her Head of Chambers, senior clerk and other colleagues said she should and coaxed (‘and gently nagged!’) her to apply.
On the one hand, Anna felt it might be too soon as, even including all her time as a solicitor, she had been a litigator for only 17 or so years. She was also aware that the application process – and the application form in particular – was highly demanding, and time-consuming. On the other hand, Anna was aware that she probably had the ‘right’ sort of cases in the relevant three-year period to make a viable application. She also recognised that she had reached a stage in her career where she was almost always leading cases or acting as sole advocate, up against silks, or being used interchangeably with them. Ultimately, Anna preferred to lead her own cases, and while oral advocacy can be the most difficult part of the job, it is also the most interesting and enjoyable (‘once you get going’).
So, Anna took the plunge and, somewhat to her surprise, was successful. But she did not find it an enjoyable process. It was well outside of her experience and comfort zone. She found the application form ‘awful’, but chambers’ silk colleagues were very kind in sharing their application forms with Anna, providing her with an idea on what the QC Selection Panel was looking for. Also, courtesy of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lack of other entertainment options, Anna had some time in the evenings to fill out the form.
The most daunting part of the whole application process for Anna was in asking prospective assessors whether they would be willing to provide her with an assessment (something many other profiled QCs, overwhelmingly women, have mentioned as angst-inducing). She was acutely aware that it was an onerous task for the judges (who were often asked to provide several such assessments each year) and Anna had to rustle up the courage to write to them. Anna was not at all confident that enough judges would be prepared to support her application. She had cases where her clients’ conduct had been very difficult, and it was natural to be concerned that ‘as the advocate you get blamed’. In the event, however, the rapid and positive responses to her letters made her feel a little better about that aspect of the process, and she realised that it had not been ‘an outrageous ask’. (Again, overwhelmingly reflecting the experience of others.)
Anna was so delighted at being invited to interview that she almost felt as though it did not matter whether she was ultimately successful; she simply felt that her decision to ‘bother’ the judges had been vindicated. As to the actual interview, Anna said she was out of practice, and the interview was very different to any she had experienced previously. But she quite enjoyed it. The interviewers seemed interested in what she had to say and there was ‘a bit of a debate’ rather than answers meeting silence. However, she thought some of the questions were really quite general. She had not previously analysed the role of a barrister or QC through the ‘competency based’ lens of the application process: ‘In your practice you do what works for you, based on experience’ rather than articulating or rationalising what that is. But the whole process, and the interview in particular ‘really made you think’.
Anna was aware that in some practice areas it could be quite difficult to evidence either oral or written advocacy due to relatively limited opportunities. She said it had been important in her career development, and especially so in the build up to making her QC application, to take cases that provided opportunities for oral advocacy, even where this meant turning down bigger, more prestigious, and more financially rewarding cases, as these would not provide the opportunities to get on her feet in court. You had to be at ‘the sharp end of the work’ and be prepared to take cases ‘inside your discomfort zone’, which besides providing opportunities for oral advocacy, could also provide exposure you to new areas of law and ways of thinking. In her practice area, large, lengthy and lucrative cases could be very tempting to take, but these ultimately could scupper your chances of taking silk if they did not get you into court. Fortunately, Anna’s chambers (and the commercial Bar more generally) were accommodating and increasingly encouraged juniors to do as much oral advocacy as possible.
Anna has not noticed any substantial change in her practice since taking silk. She has continued with her senior-junior cases while also picking up new QC briefs, and she has a pretty full diary up until the end of 2022. Anna recognised that she was fortunate in that in her specialism (commercial dispute resolution) the move up to silk did not entail such acute career and financial risks as were often involved for colleagues in other, particularly publicly funded, fields. Similarly, although Anna’s cases were complex and challenging, she felt that a sense of perspective was needed given that ordinarily they were fundamentally disputes about money – ‘nobody dies’ as she puts it: however important financially or strategically, Anna’s cases did not tend to involve the sorts of serious life-changing events that colleagues in different areas of the law handled every day.
Anna found that in her area of practice the changes on taking silk tended to be incremental, as one took on bigger, more legally complex, and more financially valuable cases. However, for Anna, taking silk had resulted in instructions which in all likelihood would not have been available to her as a senior junior, and her being appointed silk had vindicated (‘given a certain sense of relief to’) those solicitors who had instructed her over the past couple of years on important and difficult cases that could very easily have gone to a silk instead. Anna was deeply grateful for that vote of confidence and the work that she had received over the years from her instructing solicitors – and apologised ‘for being grumpy occasionally’!
Landmark Chambers, London
One of the 116 new silks appointed following the 2020 QC selection process, Gwion Lewis QC was called to the Bar in 2005. He specialises in public, planning, environmental, EU and public international law and was a member of the Attorney General’s ‘A’ Panel from 2016 to 2021 where he acted for the UK Government in the most complex cases. These included several that related to the interpretation of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Born and raised on Anglesey in north Wales, Gwion was one of the very few native Welsh speakers ever to have been appointed as a public law silk.
Among many academic achievements and honours, Gwion was a Scholar of Jesus College, Oxford, where he obtained a BA and a BCL (first class) in Jurisprudence and was awarded the Welson Prize for the most promising law student at Jesus College. Gwion also attended New York University as a US-UK Fulbright Scholar and has been a Visiting Scholar at the European University Institute in Florence. Gwion was first attracted to planning law as it appeared to be one of the most intellectually engaging areas within public law. And having studied the public law principles underpinning planning at university, it was during his pupillage at Landmark Chambers that Gwion really got to grips with the detail of planning law in England and Wales.
Gwion’s background has had a profound impact on his career and interests. He was born into a Welsh-speaking family and recalls starting to understand some English at the age of six. Gwion is a strong and passionate advocate for increasing the use of Welsh in the justice system. He points out that almost 30% of Wales’ three million population are able to speak Welsh, with substantial variations in the proportions of Welsh speakers across Wales. For example, in Gwynedd in north-west Wales, some 76% of people speak the language.
Gwion believes that the court system in Wales is an excellent supporter of the Welsh language, but despite this, the use of Welsh by parties and witnesses is still relatively limited, particularly in the higher courts. In Gwion’s experience, many Welsh speakers who use the court service believe (wrongly) that their case will take longer if they want to use the Welsh language; others believe (again wrongly) that their spoken and written Welsh might not be ‘good enough’ to use in the formal setting of a court. Gwion considers that there is much work to be done to give people confidence to use the Welsh language in the court system. He regularly notifies courts and tribunals across Wales of his wish to use the Welsh language during hearings and the request is always facilitated without question.
As a proud Welshman, Gwion was honoured and delighted to have appeared for the Welsh Ministers in the first case to be heard by the Administrative Court in Cardiff in 2009. In 2014, he became the first advocate in history to conduct a High Court trial entirely through the medium of Welsh. Gwion’s activism and advocacy for the Welsh language extends beyond his legal career. In 2015, he was presented with the coveted BAFTA Wales award for ‘Best Breakthrough’ for presenting a television documentary on the Welsh civil rights movement. In 2017, Gwion was appointed to a three-year term as a member of the Welsh Government’s Welsh Language Partnership Council, set up to advise the Welsh Ministers on matters relating to the Welsh language.
During his career, Gwion has not received mentoring in a formal sense, but he has benefitted greatly from working alongside some highly inspiring legal figures. In his first year of practice, Gwion was appointed junior counsel for the Crossrail project, led by Landmark silks David Elvin QC, Nathalie Lieven QC and Tim Mould QC. Gwion says he picked up most of what he knows about effective advocacy from observing those three silks in action.
Gwion felt ready to apply for silk at a relatively early stage in his advocacy career, being of just 15 years’ call in 2020. He had thought he would need to wait a year or two more as he might be considered to lack sufficient experience. But the COVID-19 pandemic meant that Gwion unexpectedly had time available to make an application for silk – which he was aware would be a time-consuming exercise. Crucially, he also found himself with an ideal run of ‘substantial’ cases. He felt that he could elicit the necessary evidence of excellence across the competencies, so decided to apply despite his earlier misgivings. Not having a long lead-up to the competition to make formal preparations, such as populating an early draft of the form, was not a drawback as Gwion had all the necessary information on his cases to hand.
Gwion did not seek assistance from outside consultants with the application process. He felt strongly that applicants should have the confidence to apply for silk without having to incur large fees on external assistance. Gwion considered it important to use his own words on the form and at interview. He did, however, appreciate why some applicants might seek some assistance with competency-based interviewing skills as this could be something of an unknown. Gwion found the interview a positive experience; the questions, answers and follow-ups all flowed naturally from the application form. He felt that the interviewers were interested ‘in the real me’. This was especially evident in the section on diversity, where rather than focussing on issues relating to gender, ethnicity and disability, the interviewers homed in on Gwion’s knowledge, understanding and proactivity in language rights and the place of the Welsh language in the court system.
It greatly assisted Gwion at interview that his practice had been broad in recent years and that he had been willing to tackle new areas of law, such as intellectual property law, when these had arisen. This was especially useful when seeking to demonstrate the oral advocacy competency where Gwion could call on extensive experience of cross-examining experts in various tribunal settings. Gwion’s approach throughout his practice had been to accept every instruction for which he had capacity, even those which initially appeared unexciting on paper. In Gwion’s experience, many such cases developed in unexpected ways that directly went to demonstrating one or more of the competencies for silk. He believed that he extracted the best evidence of his readiness for silk from his less high-profile cases.
Gwion was delighted and honoured to become one of ‘Her Majesty’s Queen’s Counsel Learned in Law’. More than anything, Gwion hoped that his appointment would encourage all those embarking on a legal career in Wales to give serious consideration to a public law practice to meet the increasing demand for legal services in Wales as a result of devolution.
Guildhall Chambers, Bristol
One of the new silks appointed following the 2020 QC selection process, Ray Tully QC is a heavyweight criminal law and sports law specialist in Guildhall Chambers, Bristol, where he first put down his roots over 30 years ago. Ray’s parents moved from Dublin to Oxford with his older brothers before Ray was born. They lived initially in a caravan, with no running water, so when the opportunity arose for a terraced council house in the (then) newly constructed Blackbird Leys Estate in Oxford, this represented a significant step up in the quality of family life. Ray’s father worked as a painter and decorator and his mother was a cleaner and school ‘dinner lady’.
Ray attended a local state school and had always thought that he would leave school when he was 15. However, his eldest brother, some 15 years his senior, saw the potential in Ray and was keen for him to stay on at school to take A levels and hopefully go on to university. His brother had the wisdom to appeal to ‘sports mad’ Ray’s sense of challenge and bet Ray that he would not attend sixth form and go on to university. Ray applied to Keele University because it had the best football pitches. Indeed, so keen was Ray to get a place at Keele that he put it down twice on his UCCA form! He studied history and politics and captained the football club. Ray had thought that he would go on to be a PE and history teacher and had secured a place on the post-graduate certificate in education (PGCE) course at Liverpool University.
In his last term at Keele, however, Ray’s good friend (who was captain of the University Rugby club) persuaded Ray to think about a career in the law, suspecting that Ray would have a natural flair for advocacy. This was not an area Ray had had any contact with and certainly not one he had thought of in terms of a career. But ‘it was a “light bulb moment”’. Ray had initially thought that it was too late for a change of tack to do law but after doing some research discovered he could apply for a conversion course.
Ray’s parents had by this time moved to Nottingham, where the local authority provided Ray with education and maintenance grants, including for his post-graduate year on the law conversion course at City University, London. Before starting the latter, Ray took a year out to save towards Bar school and for living in London, working as a painter and decorator and then as a runner for a firm of solicitors and as a research assistant to an MP. Ray still would not have had sufficient funds, so he researched charitable educational bodies and was extremely fortunate to be given a generous award from the Skinners’ Company. This, along with the local authority grants and a grant from The Inner Temple, was ‘life changing’. Ray doubts very much he could have afforded to become a barrister in today’s world of teaching fees and loans.
At Bar school, Ray became friendly with a student from the southwest, who was aware that Ray did not wish to remain in London and persuaded Ray to apply for a pupillage in Bristol. Even before Ray learned he had been accepted at chambers following his interview there, Ray knew he had made the right choice of location.
Ray says he had ‘by and large’ made his career at the Bar, but at the 10-year stage he took some time away to assist one of his brothers with his business in Nottingham at a crucial time. ‘Colleagues thought I was mad’, says Ray, ‘but I had no qualms about taking the break’. He ended up being away from the Bar for over three years. The company which bought out the family firm had wanted to keep Ray on, but his heart was set on returning to the Bar.
Opportunities existed in London chambers, but Ray was determined to return to Bristol, and applied to Guildhall Chambers (‘the best set in Bristol’), which he joined in late 2001. Guildhall Chambers was unusual in that in was a set with specialist teams (and, later, Ray headed up the criminal team). Ray had wanted to be a criminal specialist from his time at Bar School when he recalls visiting Marylebone Magistrates Court to observe the court in action, ‘where all life was paraded before you, from pickpockets to protesters’. For Ray, the job has always been about advocacy in front of a jury; ‘why otherwise go to the Bar?’
The Bar represented something of a cultural shock for someone coming from a working-class background. For example, in the robing room as a pupil, most of barristers were super-confident ex-public-school boys with very different accents to Ray’s own (and, indeed, at the end of Ray’s first six months he was told that he was doing extremely well, but should think seriously about getting elocution lessons – he never did!). Ray considers that the Bar has progressed considerably in terms of diversity since he was called, but that there is still a long way to go, including improved social mobility and educational opportunity.
Ray considers that he ‘could and should’ have made a serious pitch for silk some ten years earlier than he did, but for several reasons he ‘sat on my application’, not least because of government-imposed austerity and cuts to publicly funded work made the step up to silk an uncertain one, professionally and financially. Certificates for silks have become increasingly rare in crime. At one time silks did rape cases, but these days even murders do not always get a silk certificate. The application to step up to silk entailed ‘a leap of faith’, with a potential initial drop in income.
But Ray had got to a stage in his career where he knew he would regret it if he did not apply for QC and was increasingly being encouraged to do so by his peers and judges. He delayed a few more years: he knew that when he did make the application, he would give it 100% and be fully engaged in the process, which could be highly demanding, especially in terms of a barrister’s most precious commodity, time.
The ‘nudge’ came when a big case listed for six to eight weeks in Newcastle for February/March 2020 was adjourned because of disclosure issues. Unexpectedly, Ray had time to dedicate to his QC application. Ray was aware that he was in a very good position as he had had some complex, serious and very demanding cases in his ‘three-year application window’, notably the high-profile and sensitive ‘Carl Beech’ case which took up to 10 weeks in 2019. And, with the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in place, and the Newcastle case adjourned, Ray had all of March freed up. Ray said completing the application form was ‘taxing and stretched me in every conceivable way’. But he had plenty of evidence to call on for his form. Ray was confident that this would be corroborated and enhanced by his assessors who viewed him as a respected and highly experienced senior-junior, one whom QCs treated as ‘trusted co-pilot’.
It was daunting having to advocate for himself in front of the QC Selection Panel interviewers rather than on behalf of someone else in front of a judge and jury. For those aspiring to silk, Ray said it was important to recall that what you had achieved in your career was based on merit. As a barrister you tended to deflect praise and avoid anything that might be seen as ‘bragging’ but at the interview it was vital not to shy away from talking about your achievements and professional recognition. The QC interview was the first interview Ray had had since he took pupillage. Ray had thoroughly researched the process and went into the interview ‘fluent in the language of the competition’ so that he would ‘come across as a round peg for the QC round hole’. He had some professional assistance on competency-based interviewing. The interview ‘flew by’ and Ray said that he ‘quite enjoyed it’. It was important to keep in mind that if you were in front of the interviewers you were there on merit, and this gave you confidence. There were ‘no trips or tricks’ involved in the questioning, and he was given the best opportunity to provide all the information which the Panel sought.
The COVID-19 pandemic had had a major impact on his specialist area, with courts for example being still unable to cope with large multi-handed criminal trials involving a dozen or more barristers and half a dozen defendants, even using live-links across three different courts. Much greater resources were needed if the criminal justice system was to get back to anything like normal within a reasonable time – and those resources did not seem likely to be forthcoming.
Ray’s chambers had put on a spoof QC awards ceremony for him back in the Spring (when the real thing would normally have taken place) and that had been ‘affectionate and great fun’. But – when this interview took place – Ray was greatly looking forward to the official ceremony, scheduled for November 2021.
Deans Court Chambers, Manchester
Sophie Cartwright QC, who is a recognised leader in administrative and public law, inquests and inquiries, professional discipline and health and safety, was appointed to silk in the 2020 competition. Sophie – who also sits as a Recorder in the Crown Court on the Northern Circuit and as an Assistant Coroner – was raised in Lancashire and attended St Augustine’s Roman Catholic High School in Billington and took her A levels at Blackburn College. With no familial connections with the legal profession, Sophie discovered her vocation when a friend of her father arranged for Sophie to do work experience with Tony Cross QC (now a Circuit Judge). This was a life-changing encounter: ‘Tony provided incredible encouragement and kindness’, an experience ‘replicated many times and so characteristic of the Bar’, said Sophie.
Sophie secured a place in Warwick University’s law department to study for her LLB, and this was followed by attendance at the Inns of Court School of Law and studies for a master’s degree in health and safety and environmental law at Salford university. Sophie secured her pupillage at Deans Court, Manchester in 1998, where she has remained ever since. Stuart Denney QC was her pupil supervisor and has been another mentor and friend to her throughout her career. Originally working on criminal cases, Sophie began to specialise in public law, regulatory and disciplinary proceedings and inquests and public inquiries. Sophie’s practice now also encompasses judicial reviews, health and social care regulation and cases in the Court of Protection.
Among her many notable cases, Sophie served as counsel to the Anthony Grainger Inquiry concerning his fatal shooting in 2012. For the last three years, Sophie has ‘had the very great privilege’ of serving as counsel to Sir John Saunders, Chairman of the Manchester Arena Inquiry investigating the deaths of the victims of the 2017 terrorist attack. Sophie considered it to be an ‘enormous privilege’ to work with so many inspiring fellow practitioners, professionals and, particularly, the families of the victims of the terrorist attack.
In more recent years, in the build up to her QC application, inquests and inquiries have taken centre stage in Sophie’s career. There have been so many inspiring, kind, and supportive people in all aspects of her practice, but in inquest and inquiry work Sophie would give special mention to HHJ Thomas Teague QC, now Chief Coroner of England and Wales, his predecessor HHJ Mark Lucraft QC (now Recorder of London), Sir John Saunders and HHJ Clement Goldstone QC.
The silk ‘badge’ was ‘always in the background as an aspiration, spanning your career’, said Sophie. For her, it became a realistic seeming ambition when judges and highly respected professional colleagues – including opponents – began ‘sowing the necessary seeds’ through comments regarding her suitability for the ‘step up’.
To those thinking about applying for silk at some future point, Sophie strongly advised that you become fully conversant with the QC selection process. In her experience the process was clear, but it was also quite complex and highly demanding. In the interview, for example, you had to evidence your excellence within a strict time-limit. You should thoroughly familiarise yourself with the application form and the ‘extremely helpful’ QCA guidance, even quite early in your career. Against that knowledge, you needed to begin thinking strategically about your career choices e.g., in terms of the various sub specialisms within your practice area and the cases you took on in terms of their substance (as defined by the process) and opportunities that they seemed likely to provide in terms of demonstrating the competencies to the exacting standard of excellence, and in terms of potential assessors. This enabled you to build up a portfolio over the years but bearing in mind that the focus would be on your most recent cases. When you came to apply, it was a moment of deep self-reflection. You had to be totally honest with yourself regarding your suitability for the demands of the competition. Sophie said you needed to be certain that QC was not only something you could realistically aspire to, but also something you really wanted. Taking silk was a huge honour but it was not risk-free in terms of the shift you needed to make from having an established busy senior-junior practice to building a silk practice.
In your preparations it was vital that you thought closely about all of the competencies not just those concerned with the law and advocacy. The Selection Panel, profession and society at large wanted ‘fully rounded silk practitioners in a diverse society’. Sophie said that your dealings with people – colleagues, judges, practitioners (not least your opponents), clients and all those you came into contact in the work context such as court staff – had to be evidenced as excellent for you to succeed in the competition.
She had been, as usual, extremely busy on the Manchester Arena Inquiry when, in December 2020, Sophie received the advanced notice from QCA that she had been successful in the QC Competition. Sophie received congratulations from across the profession – with one very senior female judge particularly celebrating the fact the Sophie and other many other women had done so well in the competition. Sophie was ‘especially and particularly moved’ by the congratulations she received from the families of the victims of the Manchester Arena terrorist attack, the people who Sophie had the great privilege of working closely with since 2019. The families made for Sophie a desk plaque with ‘Sophie Cartwright QC’ to mark the occasion, which she will always treasure. It was ‘such a humbling honour working with and supporting the families’.
Sophie said that it had only been possible to juggle her extremely busy legal career with the demands of being a mother because of ‘the incredible support’ of her husband Ed Morgan (also a QC appointed in the same competition) and family and friends. Sophie said she owed a massive debt of gratitude to her friend Pat Taylor. At a time when Sophie was experiencing some qualms about her continuing ability to ‘juggle’ home and work life, Pat made the remarkably kind offer to look after Sophie’s children so as to enable Sophie to return to her career. Very sadly, Pat died shortly before Sophie was made silk at the delayed (November 2021) QC swearing-in ceremony in the Palace of Westminster. It was a wonderful day, said Sophie, but also one tinged with sadness, thinking about Pat and how her friendship, encouragement, and incredible practical support had enabled her to return to the Bar and go on to take silk.
Sophie was extremely grateful for the work which Eleanor Platt QC had done over the years updating the list of all women appointed QCs since Helena Normanton KC and Rose Heilbron KC were the first two women to be made silk in 1949 (Eleanor Platt QC was the 19th woman silk in 1982). As at 2021 (before the 2021 results were announced), 530 women had been made silks, Sophie being number 516. Boosting these numbers had been an additional spur for Sophie in her decision to apply for silk, hoping that she might inspire other women to aspire to becoming a QC. While the proportion of women to men practicing as QCs had steadily increased over the years (and women applicants were consistently more successful than their male counterparts in the competition) – in absolute terms, the numbers of women QCs was still small. There were currently 311 women practicing silks compared with 1514 men. There was still a long way to go, said Sophie.
Sophie greatly admired the QC Selection Panel and the process. She liked its transparency and fairness and the way it tested and stretched you, and made you reflect deeply on yourself and your career. That half the Selection Panel’s membership came from high-level non-legal backgrounds and professions was particularly powerful, with its membership changing dynamically over time. Sophie was keen that her thanks to the Selection Panel and QCA staff were recorded, recognising that their work must have been particularly demanding during the pandemic. She had ‘no criticisms at all.’
Chair of the Bar finds common ground on legal services between our two jurisdictions, plus an update on jury trials
A £500 donation from AlphaBiolabs has been made to the leading UK charity tackling international parental child abduction and the movement of children across international borders
Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs, outlines the drug and alcohol testing options available for family law professionals, and how a new, free guide can help identify the most appropriate testing method for each specific case
By Louise Crush of Westgate Wealth Management
Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs, examines the latest ONS data on drug misuse and its implications for toxicology testing in family law cases
An interview with Rob Wagg, CEO of New Park Court Chambers
With at least 31 reports of AI hallucinations in UK legal cases – over 800 worldwide – and judges using AI to assist in judicial decision-making, the risks and benefits are impossible to ignore. Matthew Lee examines how different jurisdictions are responding
What has changed, and why? Paul Secher unpacks the new standards aligning the recruiting, training and appraising of judges – the first major change to the system for ten years
The deprivation of liberty is the most significant power the state can exercise. Drawing on frontline experience, Chris Henley KC explains why replacing trial by jury with judge-only trials risks undermining justice
Ever wondered what a pupillage is like at the CPS? This Q and A provides an insight into the training, experience and next steps
The appointments of 96 new King’s Counsel (also known as silk) are announced today
