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Biographies of the Justices
Lord Phillips
President of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, KG
Lord Phillips is the first President of The Supreme Court, having been Senior Law Lord from 1 October 2008. He was previously the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.
Lord Phillips began his second stint as Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in October 2008. Before that he served as a Judge of the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division from 1987 to 1995, where he sat in the Commercial Court and presided over the Barlow Clowes and Maxwell prosecutions.
He was promoted to the Court of Appeal in 1995 and elevated to Lord of Appeal in Ordinary on 12 January 1999. He was appointed Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice on 6 June 2000, a post that he held until 2005.
On 1 October 2005 he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. He became the Senior Law Lord on 1 October 2008 and is the first President of The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
Lord Hope
Deputy President of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Hope of Craighead, KT
Lord Hope of Craighead was appointed Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1996, and is one of two Scottish Justices of The Supreme Court. He practised at the Scottish Bar for 24 years.
He was educated at The Edinburgh Academy and Rugby School. After national service with the Seaforth Highlanders he studied at Cambridge University, where he read classics, and at the University of Edinburgh, where he read law. In 1965 he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates. He became a Queens Counsel in 1978.
After serving as Advocate Depute since 1978, he was in 1986 elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. In addition he was Chairman of the Medical Appeal Tribunal and the Pensions Appeal Tribunal from 1985 to 1986. In 1989 he was appointed to the Bench direct from the Bar as Lord Justice General of Scotland and Lord President of the Court of Session. In 1992 he broke new ground by permitting an experiment in televising trials in Scottish courts for documentary purposes.
He has been Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde since 1998.
Lord Walker
Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe
Lord Walker became one of the first Justices of The Supreme Court in 2009, having been appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 2002.
Lord Walker was educated at Downside School and Trinity College, Cambridge.
Called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1960, he practised at the Chancery Bar from 1961 to 1994, and took silk in 1982. He served as a Judge of the High Court of Justice (Chancery Division) from 1994 to 1997, and as Lord Justice of Appeal from 1997 to 2002.
In 2002 he was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and became one of the first Justices of The Supreme Court in 2009.
Lady Hale
Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Baroness Hale of Richmond
Lady Hale became the United Kingdom’s first woman Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in January 2004, after a varied career as an academic lawyer, law reformer, and judge. She is now the first woman Justice of The Supreme Court.
After graduating from Cambridge in 1966, she taught law at Manchester University from 1966 to 1984, also qualifying as a barrister and practising for a while at the Manchester Bar. She specialised in Family and Social Welfare law, was founding editor of the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, and authored a pioneering case book on ‘The Family, Law and Society’.
In 1984 she was the first woman to be appointed to the Law Commission, a statutory body which promotes the reform of the law. Important legislation resulting from the work of her team at the Commission includes the Children Act 1989, the Family Law Act 1996, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. She also began sitting as an assistant recorder.
In 1994 she became a High Court judge, the first to have made her career as an academic and public servant rather than a practising barrister. In 1999 she was the second woman to be promoted to the Court of Appeal, before becoming the first woman Law Lord.
She retains her links with the academic world as Chancellor of the University of Bristol, Visitor of Girton College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor of Kings College London. A home maker as well as a judge, she thoroughly enjoyed helping the artists and architects create a new home for The Supreme Court.
Lord Brown
Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
Lord Brown was President of the Security Service Tribunal from 1989 to 2000, and was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 2004. He became one of The Supreme Court’s first Justices on 1 October 2009.
Lord Brown was educated at Stowe School (1950-1955) and Worcester College, Oxford (1957-1960), becoming an honorary Fellow in 1993.
He served in the Royal Artillery as a national serviceman from 1955 to 1957 (including active service in Cyprus from 1956 to 1957), being commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1956. Having been awarded a Harmsworth Scholarship, he was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1961 and became a Bencher of the Inn in 1980.
Lord Brown was in practice at the Bar from 1961 to 1984, from 1979 to 1984 as First Junior Treasury Counsel, Common Law (in succession to Lord Woolf), and acted as a Recorder for that same period of time.
He became a High Court Judge at the age of 47 in 1984, a member of the Court of Appeal in 1992, Vice-President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal in 2001, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 2004 and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009.
Lord Brown also served as President of the Security Service Tribunal from 1989 to 2000, President of the Intelligence Services Tribunal from 1995 to 2000, Intelligence Services Commissioner from 2000 to 2006. He was Chairman of Sub-Committee E (Law and Institutions) of the House of Lords European Union Select Committee from 2005 to 2007.
Lord Mance
Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Mance
Lord Mance became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 2005. He was from 1999 to 2005 a Lord Justice of Appeal and from 1993 to 1999 a Judge of the High Court, Queen’s Bench Division, where he handled the Commercial Court litigation regarding the Kuwait Investment Office’s investment in Grupo Torras.
Lord Mance read law at University College, Oxford, spent time with a Hamburg law firm and then practised at the commercial bar and sat as a Recorder until 1993. He chaired various Banking Appeals Tribunals and was a founder director of the Bar Mutual Indemnity Insurance Fund.
He represents the United Kingdom on the Council of Europe’s Consultative Council of European Judges, being elected its first chair from 2000 to 2003. He currently chairs the International Law Association and the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law. He is a member of the Judicial Integrity Group and of the seven person panel set up under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (article 255) to give an opinion on candidates’ suitability to perform the duties of Judge and Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice and General Court.
He served from 2007 to 2009 on the House of Lords European Union Select Committee, chairing sub-committee E which scrutinises proposals concerning European law and institutions. In 2006 he chaired a working group under the auspices of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region, recommending changes in the procedures for enforcement of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and in 2008 he led an international delegation for the same Group and the Swedish Foundation for Human Rights, reporting on the problems of impunity in relation to violence against women in the Congo.
Lord Kerr
Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore
Lord Kerr served as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland from 2004 to 2009, and was the last Lord of Appeal in Ordinary appointed before the creation of The Supreme Court.
Lord Kerr was educated at St Colman’s College, Newry, and read law at Queen’s University, Belfast. He was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 1970, and to the Bar of England and Wales at Gray’s Inn in 1974.
He served as Junior Crown Counsel from 1978 to 1983, at which point he took silk and served as Senior Crown Counsel from 1988 to 1993. In 1993 he was appointed a Judge of the High Court and knighted. He became Lord Chief Justice and joined the Privy Council in 2004.
Lord Kerr succeeded Lord Carswell of Killeen as Northern Ireland’s Lord of Appeal in Ordinary on 29 June 2009, the last Law Lord appointed before the creation of The Supreme Court.
Lord Clarke
Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony
Lord Clarke spent 27 years at the bar, specialising in maritime and commercial law, undertaking a wide variety of cases in these areas. He became a Recorder in 1985, sitting in both criminal and civil courts.
He conducted the Marchioness and Bowbelle Inquiries and was appointed Master of the Rolls in 2005. He is the first Justice to be appointed directly to The Supreme Court.
He was appointed to the High Court Bench in 1993 and in April that year succeeded Mr. Justice Sheen as the Admiralty Judge. He also sat in the Commercial Court and the Crown Court trying commercial and criminal cases respectively.
Appointed to the Court of Appeal in 1998, he was called upon to conduct first the Thames Safety Inquiry and in the following year the Marchioness and Bowbelle Inquiries. On 1 October 2005 he was appointed Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice.
Lord Dyson
Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Honourable Lord Dyson
Lord Dyson was called to the Bar (Middle Temple) in 1968, and took Silk in 1982. He was appointed as a Recorder in 1986 and was made a Bencher in 1990.
He was appointed to the High Court (Queen’s Bench Division) in 1993 and was Presiding Judge of the Technology and Construction Court from 1998 to 2001.
Lord Dyson was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2001 and was Deputy Head of Civil Justice from 2003 to 2006.
He was knighted in 1993.
Lord Wilson
Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon. Lord Wilson of Culworth
In 1967, after reading jurisprudence at Worcester College, Oxford, Lord Wilson was called to the Bar of England and Wales; and for the next 26 years, first as a junior and ultimately in silk, he practised almost exclusively in the field of family law.
From 1993 until 2005 he was a judge of the Family Division of the High Court. From 2005 until May 2011 he was a judge of the Court of Appeal.
In May 2011 he became a Justice of The Supreme Court.
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