The number of applications for the rank of Queen's Counsel (QC) has barely risen despite a three-year break and the introduction of a revamped selection process designed to produce a larger pool of applicants, it has emerged.

The Queen's Counsel Selection Panel received around 440 applications, only slightly up on the amount received in the last competition run by the Department for Constitutional Affairs in 2003.


In that year, 396 lawyers applied - the first time in ten years that the number had dipped below 400. A record 121 appointments were made; only one was a solicitor.


David Watts, head of the QC appointment secretariat, said: 'There were various forms of speculation in the profession about how many applications we would get. The figure is broadly in line with our planning assumptions.'


Philip Reed, a partner at City firm Norton Rose and secretary of the Solicitors Association of Higher Court Advocates, said: 'I am slightly surprised there are not more applications, but we will have to wait and see how it turns out. I hope there are a good number of applications from solicitors and they are viewed properly - however, this is not a rank that is going to be given out easily.'


A Law Society spokeswoman, also expressing the hope that a fair number of eligible solicitors had applied, said: 'We are pleased to see such a high volume of applicants and view this as an early sign of confidence in the new system.'


Applicants will be contacted in mid-late November about the outcome of the filter process and the next stages in selection.


Since solicitors were first permitted to apply for silk in 1996, 63 have done so and only eight have been successful.