KC selection: A view from the inside

As many of you will know, the first silk competition under the current system for King’s Counsel appointments was opened as long ago as 2005. This replaced a system whereby silks were recommended by the Lord Chancellor, following confidential soundings from judges and senior barristers. The old system inherently lacked transparency but many observers were sceptical about the new system. I also had some doubts. I was not wholly familiar with competency-based assessments and I found it hard to assess their value. Would this new system ensure the best quality applicants were awarded silk, or would it just be those who knew how to game the system? That is why, as I come to the end of my time on the KC Selection Panel, I wanted to tell you about my experience and to give you my reflections on the process, having seen it from the inside.

The first and most obvious thing to say is that the bar for appointment is very high. As a panel, our starting point in all of our work is that we have a duty to the public not just to the applicant or the legal sector. The decisions we make each year have an impact on any person needing access to justice. Every individual who needs to instruct a KC should be able to be confident that the person they instruct will be a truly excellent barrister. For that reason, we do not lower our bar for appointment and there are no quotas. Taking silk, therefore, does not depend on merely being very competent. The Panel is looking for excellence that is above and beyond the ‘day job’. The appointment process needs to be thorough.

But what does thorough actually look like? Once you submit your application in April 2025, what happens after that? Firstly, the application is reviewed by the KCA Secretariat. The team will select four judicial, three practitioner and two client assessors from the assessors listed in your form, with the selection then checked by the Chief Executive. In early May, requests for assessments are sent out to assessors. However, while all this is happening, the Secretariat and the Panel Chair, Monisha Shah, are delivering training on the grading of applications to the members of the Panel.

Grading process

The grading process is the first stage at which the Panel sees applications. The training provides members of the Panel with an opportunity to practise on applications that are not ‘live’.

In the grading training, each Panel member carries out three gradings and we then come together to discuss our approach. This allows the Chair and the more experienced members of the Panel to provide any guidance and insight. The training is mandatory for new Panel members but many of the more established members also attend to fine tune their skills. The Panel then holds what is known as the ‘benchmarking’ meeting in late June. The Secretariat select three current applications and the Panel are required to individually grade them. At the meeting we look at each case in turn, discussing our markings. This process allows us to calibrate our work against others to ensure that, as far as possible, the Panel is consistent in their work.

The bulk of the work on grading happens through August. When considering current applications the Panel are put into pairs, with one legal and one lay member. There will always be an assigned ‘lead’ grader who looks at an application first with the ‘support’ grader carrying out a subsequent grading and flagging any points for discussion before the case is submitted for full Panel moderation. Panel pairs work to submit their gradings to the Secretariat ahead of a full Panel moderation meeting in September. It is important to note that the decision made on an application is a full Panel decision. The grading pair provide a guide but each Panel member reads every single application submitted and there is an opportunity for discussion and challenge. With 11 experienced (and opinionated) people in a room we don’t always agree and debate can occasionally be quite robust! However, it is this frankness and willingness to challenge that allows us to ensure that we are making evidence-based decisions to the highest standards.

It was through this process that I truly understood the value of the lay members on the Panel. The skills and knowledge that they have spent their careers building are different to those of the legal members. The lay members bring an independent perspective and a deep understanding of what we in the legal sector might think of as ‘softer skills’, such as leadership and diversity to ensure that applicants meet the standard of excellence required and are true leaders of the profession.

As I reflected to colleagues recently, the existence of the diversity action and understanding competency, in particular, has made a clear difference to legal practice. Applicants know that this competency is something that is taken seriously by the Panel and they need to show positive evidence of their work and commitment in this respect in order to be appointed as a silk. This has led to real change in the sector over recent years as more barristers take on the challenges to improve access and understanding, ensuring that our legal sector remains world class and is more open to new entrants. The lay members on the Panel are steeped in knowledge and experience in these areas and this makes for much better outcomes in terms of appointments.

Interview stage

By the end of a (sometimes gruelling) three-day moderation meeting, the Panel moves on to the interview stage. Throughout the grading and moderation process the Panel will have identified potential questions to ask at interview but there is still a significant amount of preparation to be done ahead of meeting the applicant on the day. As with grading, interviews are carried out in pairs, one legal member, one lay member, and although we largely lead with questions in our own areas of expertise, each interviewer will have read the full pack of material on the applicant again in order to identify the right questions to fill the gaps in evidence or to test any potential points of concern or weakness. Once the interview is concluded, the interview pair will write up their notes and submit them to the Panel for the final moderation meeting where once again the whole Panel reviews and decides the outcomes.

All of this work is underpinned by our annual training and appraisal process which covers interview techniques, unconscious bias, the horns and halo effect as well as how to really drill down to get the right evidence from applicants. For the past two years the Panel has also had external experts sit in on interviews and provide feedback so that we can continue to adjust and improve our own interviewing skills. I’m not sure that anyone relishes this kind of scrutiny, but it has helped me enormously.

So, as you can see, it’s a detailed and intensive process. Decisions are not taken lightly and the standards we expect of applicants and ourselves as Panel members are high. We are looking for excellence, not the day job done well. And as I leave the Panel after two fascinating years, I can honestly say I no longer have doubts – I now believe that the work of the Panel ensures that our legal system continues to flourish.