QUEEN’S COUNSEL 2000

The list was accompanied by the usual flood of critical analysis. There were 78 successful applicants, a record, all of whom were barristers. Not a record. None of the six solicitor applicants was appointed. Ten out of 53 women were successful, but only three out of 24 ethnic minority lawyers. Following the recommendation of Sir Leonard Peach that “a table of fees for successful candidates be published annually” the Lord Chancellor has gone a step further and also included the fees for unsuccessful applicants. The fees are averaged over three years and this caused Marcel Berlins, in the Guardian of 24 April, to conjecture how one junior barrister with average yearly earnings of £634,000 could have so successful a practice and yet be considered unworthy of silk? The highest annual income of a successful applicant was £570,667.