Legal Business

From suits to silks: the rise of the solicitor QC

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The five solicitors to take Queen’s Counsel in the latest round of appointments had one thing in common: they were all arbitration specialists. While the number of solicitors taking silk remains low, the latest round, announced in January, saw the highest percentage of applicants from law firms, with 4% of the 223 applications coming from solicitors and a record percentage of successful solicitors taking silk, with 5.4% of the 93 new QCs coming from law firms.

Clifford Chance (CC)’s Audley Sheppard, Hogan Lovells’ Simon Nesbitt, Boies, Schiller & Flexner’s Wendy Miles, King & Spalding’s Thomas Sprange and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Paris-based Peter Turner all made the cut.