More than half (57%) of solicitors eligible for judicial appointment say that they could not rely on the support of their firms when applying for the bench, according to research to be published by the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), the Gazette can reveal.

In contrast, 80% of barristers are confident that their chambers would support their application, the research reveals.

More encouraging for solicitors, the JAC’s latest statistics show that solicitors achieved a higher proportion of recommendations for judicial appointment than barristers in all recent selection exercises apart from the High Court.

Solicitors had most success in the recruitment drive for the Social Entitlement Chamber, achieving 56% of all recommendations compared with barristers’ 26%.

JAC chair Christopher Stephens urged solicitors to visit the commission’s ‘pantechnicon’ of a website to find out everything they need to know about life in the judiciary and how to apply.

He said: ‘Solicitors are simply less confident than barristers when it comes to applying for the judiciary. It is nothing to do with competence.’

Stephens said that 600 solicitors had taken up judicial appointments since the JAC was founded in 2006, but added that he was ‘absolutely determined to do better’. Magic circle and other firms had signed up to a ‘declaration of commitment’ to encourage more solicitors to apply, he said.

A group comprising Stephens, solicitor High Court judge Mr Justice Hickinbottom and JAC solicitor commissioner Alexandra Marks has also made fact-finding visits to 15 law firms to explore barriers to entry to the judiciary, he said.

Another finding from the research was that 44% of solicitors who have not applied blame what they perceive to be the barriers thrown up by the ‘old boys’ network’, or the lack of an Oxbridge education.