The unauthorised guide to taking silk

How to become a KC, courtesy of soon-to-be KC Ruth Hughes

So, you’ve seen that someone from 2015 call is becoming a KC. You’ve decided to take the plunge—either now or some years down the road. 2025 applications are open and the closing date is 25 April 2025 at 5pm.

What might be helpful is this: the unauthorised guide to taking silk.

Please note this guide is written from a chancery perspective, if you want a guide from a criminal perspective, get someone to write one while they are awaiting the jury’s verdict.

What should I do first?

See if Ede & Ravenscroft stock Harry Potter time-turners. It would have been ideal if you had thought about silk earlier in your career. Much earlier. At least five years ago. More on this later…

And the second thing?

Scrutinise the form (and the lengthy guidance). Like “read the question!”, this advice doesn’t date. Things have moved on since Lord Neuberger (allegedly) took silk without knowing he’d applied, thanks to his senior clerk. The form is long and detailed and you will want to spend at least two working weeks and maybe more on it.

There are five competency areas:

A) Understanding and using the law
B) Advocacy (written and oral)
C) Working with others (aka leadership)
D) Diversity Action and Understanding (aka E & D, still considered a plus on this side of the pond)
E) Integrity (or realistically lack thereof)

Excellence is what is being sought. Silk is a kitemark of excellent advocacy.

Cases…

This is where thinking about silk early would be helpful — you’ll need to have accumulated 12 substantial cases over the last three years which will be foundation of evidence to apply. You basically want to demonstrate you already have a silk’s practice (even before getting the letters after your name).

KCA (King’s Counsel Appointments) say that cases should not be “run of the mill”, but rather to have important consequences, precedential value, or present novel or unforeseen complexity. There should have been professional challenge.

The requirement for a bedrock of cases which meet the mark is what makes the application years in planning.

Some people do take silk with fewer cases, e.g. if one case was part of the Lehman Brothers litigation, so don’t let the number put you off entirely, but there is no getting away from it. You really do have to be ready with a bunch of recent ‘big’ cases of which you feel some pride, and where the assessors, principally judges, will be willing in good conscience to report that your advocacy was stellar.

If you’re looking at an application in the next three years, I suggest building a spreadsheet that exactly mirrors the competency matrix. When you think you might use a case for silk, fill out the spreadsheet noting exactly what you did against each item in the matrix. This will help in the future because it is difficult to remember three years on why exactly your cross was so great.

Save your written advocacy and your notes for cross examination and closing in a file, too. You can label this file “silk” or if you think someone might read that over your shoulder in chambers then you can mark it “CPD” or something else equivalently anodyne.

You can do this also do this with new cases that haven’t made it on to the form yet if you are applying this year because if you are invited to interview it will be helpful to have some recent examples to supplement the form you have put it. This is good because it gives the flavour that you are already practising at a silk level.

Think about an application consultant

A consultant is here to help you through the process, for a fee. You’re busy — you already have a silk’s practice. So, for example, if you are a consultant reading this, it would be useful if you could provide a spreadsheet similar to the one I’ve described above.

Do you need a consultant, though? Views differ on this one. KCA say no. Everyone — yes, everyone — else I spoke to (including more than 15 silks, mainly practicing in chancery or tax, and many recently appointed) said yes, you do need a consultant.

A good time to approach the consultant is three months before the application deadline.

Note that consultants can be expensive. I encountered people who had used more than one, but there you risk getting conflicting advice. I wouldn’t have enjoyed that.
So, I was originally sceptical about the need for a consultant, but came round to the idea. The reasons why you might want to pay up are:

1. They have experience. Consulting aspirant KCs comprises their job. They can be more honest/brutal than fellow members of chambers;
2. The complete process takes a huge amount of time. You don’t want to do it more than once if you can avoid it;
3. Regrets. You wouldn’t want to not get silk and look back and think, “if only I had used a consultant”;
4. Consultants understand the STAR system well. You probably don’t, unless you were a recruitment consultant in a previous life;
5. They will give you a mock interview, which you do need.

Looking on the bright side, this cost is wholly and exclusively for the purpose of your profession — and as such, is tax deductible.

STAR? What is this STAR nonsense? I dropped science after GSCEs to focus on useful subjects like History and French. Now we have to do astrophysics! This isn’t what I signed up for…

KCA employ an evidence-based appointment model. You have to provide evidence of excellence in the competencies.

If the only jobs you had before coming to the bar were like me (a) sales assistant in the local museum and (b) night paralegal (bar school didn’t pay for itself, although the pupillage award drawdown was helpful) then this model may present itself as a mystery.

There are pages on the form for each of the competencies (as above). You should populate these pages with examples drawn from your substantial cases. Aim for numerous examples (points mean prizes!) but take care to present them with punctilious regard to the all-governing STAR system. Fortunately, Matthew Kelly is not involved.

STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result.

Situation is basically the background, e.g., “the case was a £1 billion pound tax avoidance scheme (I did say substantial?) and I was acting with other barristers for HMRC.”

Task is what you had to do, e.g., £I had to cross-examine (on a few days’’notice from my leader) an expert on British film production to establish that his projections for the profitability of three films were unrealistic.”

I tended to combine Situation and Task. It is best if you can put forward situations and tasks which on first blush presented as intimidatingly hard. In an ideal world the reader at KCA might feel a bit anxious at this stage picturing your unenviable predicament in the case. It is tempting to spend a lot of words on these sections because it is easier to document what was done than to set out why it was, at least in your submission, great.

Action is how you did it, e.g., I quote for the purpose of example: “The expert had provided a table of generic relationships between different parts of the film exploitation cycle, for example budget, worldwide box office revenue, DVD revenue, print and adverting costs etc. I reversed engineered this table to identify how well according to the figures given a film had to do at box office to be profitable. I broke this reverse engineering down into stages which the witness could easily agree with. Because it involved maths, I provided a summary to hand up to the witness and the judge. The witness was trapped with the result demonstrating that the films had to do better than the producers had assumed to be profitable.”

Result is what happened, e.g., “I had to sit next to the witness at the Arsenal match that evening after the cross-examination and it was awkward. He didn’t even seem to realise I’d demolished his evidence. (True story, but not actually what I would have used as a result in this example).”

You don’t use the Situation Task Action Result headings, but have imagine they are there. All the action, i.e. most of the words, should be in the action section. What you should write is what you (not others or “the team”) have done.

Try to visualise your favourite borderline narcissist and write in their voice. It is all me, me, me. This is not the time to be a shrinking violet. Aim to impress. The result should be snappy. Take the lead of the Duke of Wellington: “we won” will do.

STAR applies orally too, so bear in mind that, if (when) you get to interview, you will want to provide answers to the questions with this format in mind.

What next?

You’re assessed by judges and practitioners, remember, so start to match them up to your practice.

List your substantive cases in the last three years, review them against the competency matrix. Get in touch with your potential assessors early. You may wish to refresh their memory and your written advocacy in it.

It is possible that you are doing so many substantial cases so frequently that you will have a choice of cases and a choice of referees. The gold standard for judges is a judge who has seen a lot of your advocacy. It is really these assessors who will get you an interview. The gold standard for practitioner assessors is an opponent in silk from another set of chambers. Ideally you will be able to present a range of cases hitting all the main competency areas (although this may be more difficult with E & D).

Be aware that contacting assessors, particularly judicial assessors (especially if for a second time) can be, psychologically speaking, a painful process. I found the experience similar but worse to sending the text after a first date, except without the potential romantic upside (probably). To be fair, some judicial assessors replies were very supportive and encouraging. Thank you. I recommend planning some self-care for the day of emailing judges. Ice-cream and a bath. Tick.

Again, if you do a substantial case and you think you might need a silk reference in the relatively near future it is worth letting the judge know before you fill out your spreadsheet or at the end of the case, as this might prompt them to make a note when the hearing is fresh in their mind.

Identify your weak points

You might be able to tailor what you are doing in your practice to improve your application. Spend time shoring up your weak points.

A) Use of Law/Written advocacy

I’m afraid I don’t have any particularly useful advice, save reflecting on how you’re excellent. I think my written advocacy was improved by the strong signposting I learnt from a leader, and being sure to spell out why your case is going to win in the first half a page. The argument should knock the judge out.

B) Oral advocacy

Go to court more and on a range of matters, without notice applications, witness actions, appellate advocacy. Easy to say. Harder to achieve in practice. This might need discussion with your clerks. You might need to target an area of slightly different work. You might benefit from undertaking work on a CFA you might not otherwise have done.

You might have to work for the government at a rate which is lower than that of the junior tenant in your chambers. A government panel appointment will likely net better quality of work and it is a kitemark of good advocacy. As such appointment to the panels is extremely competitive at every stage and therefore it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think of a panel strategy akin to a silk strategy. My impression is that, for those whose goal it is, people do progress from the A panel to silk regularly.

Consider the pro bono options available including CLIPS: the Chancery Bar Association’s flagship pro bono scheme providing assistance to the judge every day in the applications Court. It isn’t only open to Chancery Bar Associations members so see if you come within any of the groups that qualify. Are you a junior on a big case? Ask your leader to take a witness for cross-examination, or even part of the closing on a discrete issue, or a contested application.

Improve your advocacy. Read the books, listen to the podcasts and talks, teach it to students at your Inn. Watch your favourite silks on Supreme Court TV and Court of Appeal YouTube. I’m not joking, it is a great way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon. Also CPD sorted. Reflect on how your advocacy could be improved. Work on your own style.

C) Working with others

It is useful to be able to demonstrate leading a junior. Try to recruit one. You could do some of that pro bono work as a pair with a junior in chambers.

When you are asked to draft evidence, you could suggest that it would be much more cost-effective for a junior to do it. Sometimes a solicitor is very busy and does not have time to do some of the work you were hoping they would on a case. Make their life easier by introducing them to the junior tenant in chambers. Everyone will love you, especially the clerks. Share the joy. Treat the junior well. Be clear and ideally reasonable with them about your expectations. Support them to improve. I’m still learning so probably so are they. If you are in trial, discover if they prefer to work mornings or evenings. (I can’t do late nights so it was always a nightmare working with silks who wanted to do an all-nighter, or indeed many such). If your junior has a life crisis be prepared to get the job done yourself. Take responsibility for their mistakes. Provide praise when they do a good job. Take them for a drink, or equivalent, at the end of the case. Be the leader you wish you had. Anyone else miss Barack Obama?

I once went to a silk seminar where a judicial member of KCA said she wanted to see applicants who would be there for the junior tenant who had got into a total state. Be that person.

People not to be:

1. a snake; be honest and straightforward with your opponents, not sneaky;
2. a bully such as indulging in robing-room tactics? That’s just embarrassing!

D) E & D
This is one you may need some time to work on. You can rely on evidence from experience relating to non-substantial cases and also perhaps your wider life e.g. your activities as governor of a school or trustee of a charity. Turns out more than a decade on the E & D committee of the Chancery Bar Association has come in handy.

• Stay up to date on bar wide issues in this area;
• Get involved in some kind of E & D initiative and do something useful, work out what positive impact it’s had;
• See discrimination, tackle it, in the most appropriate manner. I was asked to give an example at interview;
• E & D in court, also important. Perhaps you are a commercial barrister who has never ever been instructed by a private client. Again, choosing the right pro bono case might help with this competency too.

E) Integrity

If this is a problem, I can’t help you.

Take your chances

Yes, building a strong enough practice takes dedication but it also takes some luck. Take your chances.

In case I had to do silk application 3.0 I accepted instructions to draft an application for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal for a client I knew well but in an area of law with which I was less familiar. I already had a full diary so that meant writing the skeleton in the hours between 5 am and 8 am in the mornings before a mediation and Court etc. We got permission to appeal so I’ll get to try the silk robes out in the Court of Appeal. Very useful experience, but hard work.

I accumulated mentors along the way. This I cannot recommend this highly enough. My chambers have been extremely supportive, but I’ve also got an enormous amount of help and guidance from silks, sometimes in other areas of law.

You can get formal mentoring, e.g., through your bar association. I tried that but for me the best relationships are forged in the white heat of a case. I always appreciated my former pupil masters’ support, but when people who were outside the chambers family opined I had what it took, it was that that made a decisive effect upon my confidence.

But also, take care of your own sanity.

Do try to aim for a flourishing life. Sometimes you will need to work (very) hard, but try not to become a workaholic. Other things are important, like your family, your health, friends and a hobby.

No hobby? Shame. If you want to learn to kayak, do let me know.

Some things are more important than work and anyway you’ll be better at it if you have a solid and stable home life. I’m not saying it is impossible to be otherwise, of course not: look at George Carman. But in the long run staying sane is better. Our job is stressful, obviously.

Try to get some good coping mechanisms, i.e., not a bottle of wine (or more) a night.

Eat properly, sleep properly and get some regular exercise. Hydrate. Take weekends (at least one day) off. Have a nice holiday. Put the out of office on. I particularly enjoyed “Ruth is kayaking the Zambezi”. Try not to check the email. Set some boundaries. Police them yourself.

It is OK to tell your clients that it is out of order to text you at 10 pm unless the case is actually on fire. If you are facing psychological distress get some therapy. Therapy is like gym for the mind. Exercise is good not just for the clinically obese it is also for that gym shark dude doing something on a frame that isn’t cruel and unusual punishment, but rather is called a “muscle-up”. Same for therapy. And if you have any court fear, or the yipps about sending tax advice out, you could try yoga to deal with that too.

Also, recognise workplace insolvency. Workplace insolvency is when your obligations to your clients become too great for you to service. You can’t meet the work debts as they fall due. I know that this is very stressful but it is going to happen to everyone with a successful practice at some stage. Just like real insolvency (let’s hope at least you will be avoiding that), you need your debts to be restructured. You might need time to pay. Some debts will need to be written off. This is not ideal but it is OK. Talk to your clerks. Be honest about what you can manage. Act in the interest of your clients. Work out when you can take some time off. Take the time off.

The interview

It is wise to have started preparing for this in August. By the pool, with your water-resistant iPad, drafting some two-minute STARs, for absolutely every question you can possibly think of that KCA might ask you (and that’s a lot).

Prepare for it as you would a substantial High Court application, said one of my friends.

Maybe have some time set aside around the time of the interview. Perhaps this is luxury, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the middle of a trial when my interview came.

Have a mock interview. Maybe more than one. Recruit a sympathetic family member to ask you all those questions you have dreamt up. Ask your friends what they were asked in their interviews. Obviously, this latter advice comes with some downsides, and from a confidentiality perspective, expect people to know you’re applying for silk. It was not great the day on Chancery Lane that a junior asked me about my application. Lincoln’s Inn has always been quite leaky. Nevertheless, I consider that the cost was worth the benefit of getting tips and now (as a leading tax silk pointed out) I could start a silk consultancy if it all goes wrong.

Stalk the people on KCA. There are lay people and lawyers (solicitor, barrister, retired judge). You get interviewed by one of each. OK — be sure to avoid a restraining order — but I knew the panel members’ backgrounds and had found videos and listened to a podcast, so when it came to it, the voices were familiar. There is one video of Dame Anne Rafferty talking about the importance to her of make-up, for example. Inevitably this induced a vortex of pain as I started to wonder if I should wear make-up to the interview even though I don’t usually wear make-up for e.g. Court. If you do, fine, but I’ve always got something better to do, like revise my cross-examination. This could be overdone, but I felt my extra research was worthwhile.

I knew what I was going to wear on the day of the interview and I’d staked out the venue. I avoided chambers and work emails entirely on the day. This day is not the day to find out the other side are going to try to strike you out. I organised an uplifting playlist, channelling Adam Peaty before the Olympic final — though not as fast, less wet, with fewer ring tattoos, but many more STARs. Whatever your tactic for dealing with stress, you are going to want it to be on your A game for the interview.

I tried to pitch my answers at the level of legal knowledge I thought the lay interviewer would have. I rather enjoyed my interview, but I should have spoken more slowly. Too much adrenaline.

Brandy

It was vitally important for me to either start or end the interview with a double brandy in the Cittie of Yorke. I had court the next day so I had to go in for last orders. If you want a soft drink, it is a Sam Smith’s pub — so bear that in mind.

If you are thinking of applying this year or in the future, good luck!

Ruth Hughes will be appointed KC on 24 March 2025. She practises at 5 Stone Buildings, specialising in trusts and estates, mental capacity, tax and fraud. Ruth once represented 22 highly endangered Chinese tigers in a divorce. Sort of. One of them was called Tiger Woods. She has cross-examined on the closing of the contracts on Avatar and litigated about the capital gains tax on a Turner painting. She helped obtain Proceeds of Crime Act final restraining orders against Baroness Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman. She has acted for many well-known figures lacking mental capacity. She can’t tell you who though. She can be contacted at clerks@5sblaw.com