The make-up of the independent panel that will select the first QCs under a reformed system was unveiled this week.

With the start of the 2005 silk round due shortly, the nine-member panel will be chaired by Sir Duncan Nichol, a commissioner for judicial appointments and chairman of the Parole Board.


Dame Elizabeth Butler Sloss fills the position for a retired senior judge, while Law Society Council member Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, managing partner at London legal aid firm Scott-Moncrieff Harbour & Sinclair, and Christopher Woolley, Chief Crown Prosecutor for South Wales, take the two solicitor positions.


The two barrister members are former Bar Council chairman Roy Amlot QC and deputy High Court judge Sonia Proudman QC of 11 New Square.


They were nominated by Law Society President Edward Nally and Bar Council chairman Guy Mansfield QC to sit for one year, after which there will be an open competition.


The lay members, selected by open competition to serve for three years, are Ruth Evans, who chairs the General Medical Council's standards committee; Professor Joan Higgins, emeritus professor of health policy at Manchester University; and Karamjit Singh, a commissioner on both the Criminal Cases Review Commission and Electoral Commission.


Mr Nally said: 'I have every confidence they will deliver an objective and transparent system that identifies senior advocates of exceptional skill and expertise solely on the basis of merit.'


References and interviews form part of the new system.


Panel members will receive £686 per day, the same rate as a High Court judge. They will be supported by five staff in central London offices and will sit for around 20 days a year. The process will be self-financing through fees charged on application and appointment.