As First Treasury Counsel (Common Law), Philip Sales, QC, is one of two senior barristers who handle the Government's most complex and significant public law work. The 48-year-old barrister has been involved in many controversial, law-shaping cases: control orders, asylum seekers, private care homes, freedom of information, the Hunting Act. Recently he defended the Crown in a challenge brought by two campaign groups against the decision by the Serious Fraud Office to abandon an inquiry into BAE Systems' dealings with Saudi Arabia. Sales was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, Surrey, before attending Cambridge and Oxford. He was called to the Bar in 1985 and is a tenant at 11KBW. He took silk in 2006.

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