Silk stockings

Becoming a QC

I have only worn stockings on one occasion in my life. That was the day I became a QC, or "took silk" (so-called because of the silk robe worn by QCs, although now most wear robes made of artificial silk). For the ceremony you had to wear a formal outfit. That included a "full bottomed wig" (not the normal wig that barristers wear in court, but a much larger and grander version of the sort you see on formal photographs of judges). Also buckle shoes and stockings beneath the formal outfit, which goes to about the knee.

Changes to the system

The system for appointing QCs has changed in the last few years. Until 2003 the announcements were always made during Easter week. The day before Good Friday, known as Maundy Thursday, was when the official list was produced but you would normally know when you received your letter of either appointment or rejection. That would come on the Tuesday two days before. Some people have that sent to their home, others have it sent to their clerk in Chambers (the office where barristers operate from).

Now the consultation system has changed and there is no set date. There was a gap between 2003 and 2006. Recently new appointments were notified in July and the ceremony took place during October. It is not known when the date of the next "silk round" will be.

A QC's workload

As a QC you will often appear with a junior barrister, with you as the leader. It used to be the case that you always appeared with a junior, but that rule was relaxed some time ago. Therefore a QC can be appearing on his or her own against a QC or junior barrister on his or her own (or likewise against a solicitor advocate). The award of QC is meant as a quality mark, to mark out the top members of the profession.

However there are risks in becoming a QC. If you use a QC, the other side might well use a QC. Therefore that can increase the costs, and normally if you lose you have to pay all or some of the other side's costs. Therefore as a QC you are only likely to be asked to do a case which is thought of being at QC level. That means that once you are a QC you will lose a lot of the work you were doing before. If those who send you instructions, solicitors, do not have you in mind for a QC type of case then as a QC you can find yourself with very little work.

Therefore timing your application is important. You want to apply when you think you will get it, and when you will also get or keep enough work so that you will still be busy as a QC. In any one year the vast majority of applications to become a QC are unsuccessful. However you can apply again as often as you want.

Applying to become a QC

I applied for appointment for Easter 1999. I asked for the letter to be sent to my clerk. Having applied, I did not give the application much thought until the couple of days or so beforehand. I am lucky in that I do not worry about things as a rule, and so I had not worried about my application at all. However when it got to the evening before the results were due out (the Monday of Good Friday week) I was like a cat on a hot tin roof. I could not think of anything else. In the end I decided it was pointless attempting to do any work that evening and decided to watch the television instead, to try and take my mind off the issue of whether the following morning I would find out I was to be made a QC. (I do not normally watch much television). I turned the television on, and what should come on the screen but "Kavanagh QC" starring John Thaw. It was plain there was to be no escape from the subject.

Again I normally sleep soundly regardless of work or other pressure but on this particular evening I seemed to spend half the night lying there thinking about the result. In the end I probably went to sleep at about 5 a.m. I was awoken by the telephone three hours later. I knew it would be my clerk. The question was, good news or bad? I wanted to be made a QC. I also had a friend and colleague in Chambers, Nicolas Braslavsky, who had also made his first application for silk. I very much wanted him to be successful as well. Both of us getting silk first time seemed too much to hope for. Thankfully we had both succeeded. That news woke me up pretty quickly.

Two types of letter

Before 1999 the letters came in two forms. If you received a large thick letter, you had succeeded because as well as saying that you had been appointed the letter gave you all the details for the ceremony. If you had failed you received a slim letter. In 1999 they changed the system (without telling anyone) and everyone got a slim letter. A subsequent letter gave the ceremony details. One person who was successful had not bothered opening the letter (which he had had sent to his home) because when it was a slim letter he assumed he had been unsuccessful. It was only later on that he casually opened the letter and to his astonishment found that he had succeeded.

House of Lords via Ede & Ravenscroft

The ceremony takes place at the House of Lords. Nick and I both went to Ede & Ravenscroft, the long-established traditional legal outfitters on Chancery Lane, for our hired outfits and to be assisted to make sure they were put on correctly. We then waited outside the shop for the limousines to arrive (each of us travelling with family members). As you can imagine, we received some strange glances! Arriving at the House of Lords in the limousine, I was amused to find myself the subject of endless photographs from a large group of Japanese tourists. They were obviously labouring under the misapprehension that I was someone important.

The following week I was doing my first case as a QC out in the Cayman Islands. Others who had become QCs after a number of applications told me that I was really lucky that I only had to go through it once. Based on how I felt the night before the results, I think they were right.

Michael J. Booth QC