Last week we heard that twelve family lawyers had “taken silk” or in other parlance been appointed as Queen’s Counsel, or QC for short. So we thought, as a little side-track from our normal topic, a brief look at what a QC really is, and this business about silk, might be instructive. We will try to keep the history lesson short! Queen’s Counsel (or King’s Counsel during the reign of a male monarch) are senior barristers – or, unusually, senior solicitors who are specially qualified to do advocacy in the higher courts. The Queen’s (or King’s) Counsel superseded the Medieval…
