The King’s Counsel system remains the most prized designation for elite advocates in the world. One hundred and five lawyers – 104 barristers and one solicitor – were selected from the 2024 process, the results of which were announced last week.
The overwhelming majority of the new silks are already ranked very highly within their practice areas in Legal 500, and it would be a fool’s errand to try to pick a ‘best of’ for that reason, but here are ten of the designees who illustrate the broad range of talent in their professions today, as well as the broad scope it covers.
Adam Wagner, Doughty Street Chambers
Doughty Street Chambers is the set with the largest number of members parading to Westminster Hall, with five in the 2025 cohort, a distinction shared with Essex Court Chambers. Notable for being one of the most prominent barristers on X (formerlyTwitter) since the 2010s – a time in which, at a previous chambers, he was a founder of UK Human Rights Blog – Wagner was one of the most visible commentators on the mechanics of the lockdown policies created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the pandemic, of late he is notable for representing pro bono the families of British-linked hostages who were kidnapped as part of the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel, including that of UK-Israel dual national Emily Damari, who was released by Hamas earlier this month.
Laura Poots, Pump Court Tax Chambers
A natural candidate for silk as winner of tax junior of the year at the 2024 Legal 500 Bar awards, Poots is ranked tier 1 for the tax: corporate section as well as also being ranked for tax: personal and tax: VAT and excise. Recent cases of note include representing HM Revenue and Customs in the Court of Appeal in a dispute with hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management. A more unusual instruction in her career was her – unled – 2022 role representing the Falkland Islands’ Commissioner of Taxation in that jurisdiction’s Court of Appeal in a case regarding its tax “ring-fencing” of petroleum extraction activities. Poots is not the only female tax barrister being recognised in this round, with Marika Lemos of Devereux Chambers also appointed.
James Berry, Serjeants’ Inn Chambers
In a career punctuated by a two-year stint as Member of Parliament for Kingston and Surbiton – defeating, and then losing his seat to, current Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey – James Berry’s return to the Bar has borne fruit, having earnt silk the hard way through the conventional appointment process rather than as a political “nylon” (the colloquial term for a junior given the designation as a result of a political appointment). He is ranked as a top-tier junior in Legal 500’s police law (forces and constables) section on the strength of his practice representing both forces and officers – earning him the award for public services and charities junior of the year at the Legal 500 UK Bar Awards 2024. His recent work includes representing the Metropolitan Police in disciplinary proceedings against the former head of the Metropolitan Black Police Association, who was found to have shared racist messages in a WhatsApp group.
Julia Smyth, Landmark Chambers
Smyth, the 2024 Legal 500 Bar awards immigration junior of the year, is notable for her public law practice, focusing on immigration, nationality and the welfare state. Formerly in-house government lawyer, she represents Child Poverty Action Group, a core participant in the economics module of the Covid-19 inquiry. However, much of her notable work of late has been in the immigration and nationality space, regularly representing the government in the Court of Appeal. In one recent case, she represented the government, defeating an appeal by an Albanian man who fraudulently applied for British citizenship under a false name and date of birth, also claiming to be Kosovar, against the decision to strip him of his British citizenship. The set – which dominates planning law as well as being notable – has four appointees this year – its record.
Edward Craven, Matrix Chambers
In a diverse practice illustrated by ranking in nine Legal 500 practice areas, Edward Craven is best known for cases at the interaction of human rights, technology and business. In 2024, he was a lead junior in the case of a number of Nepali and Bangladeshi migrant workers, who were found to be able to bring their claim against Dyson, for alleged human trafficking it its Malaysian supply chain, in the English courts – his work in this space playing a key role in securing him the title of group litigation junior of the year at the 2024 Legal 500 Bar awards. Regarding AI, he also represented the defendant in Andrew Prismall v Google UK Limited, securing a strike-out of a claim over the Royal Free Hospital’s co-operation with Sir Demis Hassabis’ Google Deepmind to detect and treat acute kidney injury. Other work includes sports and financial crime cases.
Nakul Dewan, Twenty Essex
Already a notable senior lawyer on the international arbitration circuit, Nakul Dewan adds English silk to a career which has seen him designated as a Senior Advocate in 2019 by the Supreme Court of India. He is already ranked as a tier one leading Silk in Legal 500 Asia Pacific’s Regional International Arbitration: the Bar coverage, on the strength of his Indian designation. Dewan is active both as counsel and arbitrator across a range of commercial and energy disputes, and is one of the small but growing cohort of English barristers primarily based in Singapore. He follows in the footsteps of Harish Salve KC of Blackstone Chambers, who has dual designation both in India (in 1992) and England (2020).
Jacqueline Renton, 4PB
Ranked in the top tier for family: children and domestic abuse in Legal 500, Jacqueline Renton is notable for her practice in private international law in the family context. Many of her cases concern the Hague Convention 1980, including 77 reported cases, 16 Court of Appeal cases and six appeals to the UK Supreme Court. Recently, she – pro bono – represented the father of a fifteen-year-old in 2024 Court of Appeal case Re P, in which the child sought to stay in the United Kingdom with his Spanish father, against the wishes of the child’s mother, who sought a Hague Convention return order.
Niranjan Venkatesan, One Essex Court
As victor of junior of the year at the 2023 Legal 500 Bar Awards, Niranjan Venkatesan’s name is an unsurprising feature of this year’s list of appointments. While also called to the Indian Bar – in an appointment round with several selections showcasing the English legal profession’s links to the world’s largest common law jurisdiction – his practice is no means defined by those connections, having appeared across a varied range of large cases in the Commercial Court and International arbitration, such as having appeared as a leading junior for the defendants in the Invest Bank v El-Husseini litigation.
Daniel Feetham KC, 3 Hare Court and Hassans
One may think that Legal Business has committed a typographical error, or worse, a major blunder in protocol, by including Feetham KC’s postnominals prior to this year’s ceremony in Westminster Hall. Not so: he already has the designation in respect of Gibraltar, the jurisdiction in which he was born, raised and built his career in private practice, rising to role of head of litigation at market-leading firm Hassans. He adds English silk to his CV, having become a full member of London set 3 Hare Court in 2023. In politics, he served as Minister of Justice from 2007 to 2011 among other roles in the British Overseas Territory.
Jason Pobjoy, Blackstone Chambers
Jason Pobjoy has a diverse practice, covering both public law and commercial cases. In public law, he is known for his work for the claimants in the litigation over the government’s proposal to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda, and for the Duke of Sussex in the judicial review surrounding his security arrangements, as well as for the Government Legal Department in Russian sanctions cases, such as those concerning ex-Formula One driver (and son of oligarch Dimitry) Nikita Mazepin. Of late, he represented Elliott Management in an appeal of its judicial review of the London Metal Exchange’s decision to suspend trading in nickel futures in March 2022, after a price spike which – if the trades stood – would have left LME members on the hook for a $20bn margin call. In late 2024, in a now-unusual case for an English barrister to take on post-Brexit, instructed by Carter-Ruck he successfully represented a Moldovan client in a judicial review.
