On the 24th March 2025, Lawrence Selby was sworn in as a KC.
He follows his younger brother Andrew who became a QC in 2021.
They become one of a few select band of brothers (literally) to have both reached the rank of silk and are perhaps the only 2 siblings currently practising as silks in the Criminal Courts.
Long before they were defending clients in the courtrooms however, the 2 brothers tore up defences on the football field. Lawrence won the English Schools Football Association national title back in 1988 (having turned down the offer of trials with Spurs after a meeting with ‘El Tel’ Venables in a hotel in Spain in the summer of 1987 and Andrew reaching the quarter finals and semi-finals (in 1989 and 1990). He never did get that winners medal.
After university and Bar School at ICSL (Lawrence reading Italian at Reading) and Andrew (Japanese and Law at SOAS) both carved niches in criminal defence but their love of football and sport never left them, though, and now, alongside their busy criminal defence practices, both are involved with the FA and other sporting bodies in various capacities on sports disciplinary and safeguarding panels.
The Selby boys have never been ones for convention. Neither of them prosecutes; they have always defended. Their father—British by birth, the youngest of five, with four older sisters—was the son of Russian and Romanian immigrants. At least, the family always said Russian. Their grandmother was from Odessa, and since the invasion, no one quite knows whether to say Russian or Ukrainian. What is certain is that their father, who started studying law at Nottingham and Sydney before an unexpected detour to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), would have been insufferably proud of his sons. He would have told anyone who would listen that “both my boys are KCs”—and quite possibly a few who wouldn’t.
Little was known of their father’s life before he met their Spanish mother, but every now and then, he let slip a tale of witch doctors and headhunters. Then, one day, in 1980, the Selby brothers saw a familiar face on the BBC. Jimmy Stevens—the man their father had described as a friend—was leading a revolt against the British government in Vanuatu. As Stevens appeared atop a heavy digger, looking every bit the revolutionary, the boys shouted, “It’s Jimmy! It’s Jimmy!” Their father, unfazed, muttered only, “He still hasn’t paid me for that. Stevens declared Espiritu Santo island independent, leading to a brief rebellion famously dubbed the “Coconut War.” Stevens, was sentenced to 14 years in prison and released in 1991.
Their mother, hailing from Spain, has been the emotional cornerstone of the family. Her tears of joy flowed freely when her first son took silk in 2021. With Lawrence now joining the ranks of King’s Counsel, her pride knows no bounds. “Both my boys are KCs,” she beams, her happiness a testament to the family’s collective achievements.
Before their father’s passing in March 2019, a playful family debate revolved around who would represent him in a hypothetical legal quandary. In a heartfelt gesture, one brother assured their father that both had achieved the prestigious rank of KC. Today, that white lie has become a beautiful reality. Their father, who once regaled them with stories of his adventurous past, would undoubtedly be boasting about his sons’ accomplishments to anyone who’d listen.
The Selby brothers’ legal pedigree wasn’t the only thing that ran through the family. Their father had been involved with Selby’s, a well-known restaurant in Hanover Square, and, according to family lore, the first legal casino in England. He even signed the famous trumpeter Eddie Calvert, known for hits like Oh, Mein Papa.
With Lawrence now taking silk, the brothers continue their shared path—defending, debating, and, undoubtedly, disagreeing. Their mother’s pride is complete, their father would have dined out on the story for years, and somewhere in the ether, Jimmy Stevens still hasn’t settled his tab.
