Changes to silk application may discriminate against women, Bar warns
Women applying for the rank of silk could be disadvantaged by Queen’s Counsel Appointments (QCA) proposals to change the selection process, the Bar Council has warned.
Currently, silk applicants list 12 cases they have worked on in the past three years and give the names of a number of people who can comment on their performance in those cases.
However, the QCA proposed in April that applicants be asked to list every case over a particular period and every judge, fellow practitioner and client involved, in order to prevent cherry-picking.
Responding to the consultation, ‘QC Appointment Scheme—Listing of cases and Assessors’, the Bar Council argued that the proposal was ‘likely to disadvantage primary carers (and therefore more women than men) because senior women in some types of work may turn down the best cases because they require travelling away from home, limiting the number of cases of substance they can present’.
It said it was not necessary to list everyone involved in a case. To encourage more women to apply, however, it suggested the QCA reassure applicants that career breaks will not be held against them, and give them an opportunity to explain the circumstances if they don’t have a significant number of cases within a three-year period.
Moreover, the Bar Council warned the QCA against suggesting applicants be subject to regulatory intervention if they fail to disclose a case that is said to be sub-par. This could have a ‘chilling effect’ for some applicants, it said, and there was ‘a very difficult subjective element’ since advocacy can be criticised at one level of a case and go on to triumph at the next.
The Law Society broadly supported the proposals in its response, although it recommended that there be ‘some leeway’ for applicants to submit a case from outside the three years.
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