Biographies of the Justices
Lord Reed
President of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Reed of Allermuir
Robert John Reed, Lord Reed of Allemuir took up appointment as President of the Supreme Court on 13 January 2020, suceeding Lady Hale of Richmond. Upon this appointment, Lord Reed became a life peer.
Prior to his appointment as President, Lord Reed previously served as Deputy President of the Supreme Court from 7 June 2018 and was originally appointed as a Justice on 6 February 2012.
He studied law at Edinburgh University and undertook doctoral research in law at the University of Oxford. He qualified as an advocate in Scotland and as a barrister in England. He practised at the Scottish Bar in a wide range of civil cases, and also prosecuted serious crime.
He served as a senior judge in Scotland for 13 years. From 2008 to 2012 a member of the Inner House of the Court of Session, and from 1998 to 2008 a member of the Outer House of the Court of Session, where he was the Principal Commercial Judge.
As well as sitting on the Supreme Court and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, he is also a member of the panel of ad hoc judges of the European Court of Human Rights, and is a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong. He is also the Visitor of Balliol College, Oxford.
Lord Hodge
Deputy President of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Hodge
Patrick Stewart Hodge, Lord Hodge, was appointed Deputy President of the Supreme Court in January 2020. He was originally appointed as a Justice on 1 October 2013.
Lord Hodge was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1983 and appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1996. From 1997 to 2003, he was a part time Law Commissioner at the Scottish Law Commission.
From 2000 to 2005 he was a Judge of the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernsey, and Procurator to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He was a Senator of the College of Justice between 2005 and 2013. In that role he was a Commercial Judge and the Scottish Judge in Exchequer Causes. He also served as one of the Scottish Intellectual Property Judges and as a Judge in the Lands Valuation Appeal Court.
Lord Kerr
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore
Brian Francis Kerr, Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2009.
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 Kerr is the first Justice of the Supreme Court to come from Northern Ireland.
Lady Black
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lady Black of Derwent DBE
Jill Margaret Black, Lady Black of Derwent became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2017.
Lady Black attended Penrhos College in North Wales before studying at Durham University. The first lawyer in her family, her initial career at the Bar involved a broad range of criminal and civil work, although she later specialised in family law. For a period in the 1980s she taught law at Leeds Polytechnic. She was a founding author of the definitive guide to family law practice in England and Wales, and continues to serve as a consulting editor.
Lady Black was appointed to the High Court in 1999, assigned to the Family Division. In 2004 she became the Chairman of the Judicial Studies Board's Family Committee, until her appointment as a Judicial Appointments Commissioner in 2008, where she served until 2013. Lady Black was appointed a Lady Justice of Appeal in 2010. She was previously Head of International Family Justice.
Lord Lloyd-Jones
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Lloyd-Jones
David Lloyd Jones, Lord Lloyd-Jones became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2017.
Lord Lloyd-Jones was born and brought up in Pontypridd, Glamorgan where his father was a schoolteacher. He attended Pontypridd Boys' Grammar School and Downing College, Cambridge. He was a Fellow of Downing College from 1975 to 1991. At the Bar his practice included international law, EU law and public law. He was amicus curiae (independent advisor to the court) in the Pinochet litigation before the House of Lords.
A Welsh speaker, Lord Lloyd-Jones was appointed to the High Court in 2005. From 2008 to 2011 he served as a Presiding Judge on the Wales Circuit and Chair of the Lord Chancellor's Standing Committee on the Welsh Language. In 2012 he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal and from 2012 to 2015 he was Chairman of the Law Commission.
Lord Lloyd-Jones is the first Justice of the Supreme Court to come from Wales.
Lord Briggs
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Briggs of Westbourne
Michael Townley Featherstone Briggs, Lord Briggs of Westbourne became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2017.
Lord Briggs grew up around Portsmouth and Plymouth, following his naval officer father between ships, before spending his later childhood in West Sussex. He attended Charterhouse and Magdalen College, Oxford. A keen sailor and the first lawyer in his family, he practised in commercial and chancery work before being appointed to the High Court in 2006. He was the judge in charge of the extensive Lehman insolvency litigation from 2009 to 2013.
Lord Briggs was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2013. He was the judge in charge of the Chancery Modernisation Review in 2013, and led the Civil Courts Structure Review in 2015 to 2016. In January 2016 he was appointed Deputy Head of Civil Justice.
Lady Arden
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lady Arden of Heswall DBE
Mary Howarth Arden, Lady Arden of Heswall, became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2018.
Lady Arden grew up in Liverpool. She read law at Girton College Cambridge and Harvard Law School. Called to the Bar in 1971, she became a Queen's Counsel in 1986 and served as Attorney General of the Duchy of Lancaster between 1991 and 1993. She served on the Court of Appeal of England and Wales from 2000 to 2018.
Her judicial career began in 1993 when she was appointed to the High Court of Justice of England and Wales as the first woman judge assigned to the Chancery Division. Alongside her judicial experience, she has written extensively on how the law keeps pace with social change. Her two-volume book Shaping Tomorrow's Law was published in 2015. It drew strongly on her knowledge of law reform, which she began to develop while serving as Chairman of the Law Commission of England and Wales from 1996 to 1999.
Between 2005 and September 2018, Lady Arden was Judge in Charge, Head of International Judicial Relations for England and Wales. She organised bilateral exchanges between the senior Judiciary of the UK and the judiciaries of leading national and supranational courts overseas. She became a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2011, and is an ad hoc UK judge of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Lord Kitchin
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Kitchin
David James Tyson Kitchin, Lord Kitchin, became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2018.
After studying Natural Sciences and Law at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, Lord Kitchin was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1977. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1994 and was elected a Bencher of Gray's Inn in 2003. His practice covered all aspects of intellectual property including patents, trademarks, copyright, designs and trade secrets.
Lord Kitchin was appointed a judge of the High Court, Chancery Division in 2005 and Senior Judge of the Patents Court in 2007. From 2009 to 2011 he was the Chancery Supervising Judge for the Midland, Wales and Western Circuits and, during that time, was also a member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office. He was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2011 and was the Lord Justice responsible for the supervision of intellectual property appeals.
Lord Kitchin is the Chair of the Advisory Council of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London and has been awarded an honorary LL.D. by that university. He is also an honorary fellow of Fitzwilliam College.
Lord Sales
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Sales
Philip James Sales, Lord Sales became a Justice of the Supreme Court in January 2019.
Lord Sales was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, before reading law at both Churchill College, Cambridge, and Worcester College, Oxford.
He was called to the Bar of England and Wales at Lincoln's Inn in 1985 and was appointed First Treasury Junior Counsel in 1997. He was an Assistant Recorder from 1999 to 2001, Recorder from 2001 and 2008, and Deputy High Court Judge from 2004 and 2008.
Lord Sales became a Queen's Counsel in 2006 and continued to act in the re-named post of First Treasury Counsel Common Law until his appointment to the High Court, Chancery Division in 2008. He was a member of the Competition Appeal Tribunal between 2008 and 2015, and Vice-President of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal between 2014 and 2015.
Between 2009 and 2014 Lord Sales served as Deputy Chair of the Boundary Commission for England. He was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2014.
Lord Hamblen
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Hamblen of Kersey
Nicholas Archibald Hamblen, Lord Hamblen of Kersey became a Justice of the Supreme Court in January 2020.
Lord Hamblen was educated at St John's College, University of Oxford and Harvard Law School, and was called to the Bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1981.
He practised at the Commercial Bar from 1982-2008. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1997, an Assistant Recorder in 1999 and a Recorder in 2000.
Lord Hamblen was appointed to sit as a Justice in the High Court in November 2008 and was a nominated Commercial Court Judge.
In February 2016 he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal.
Lord Leggatt
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Leggatt
George Andrew Midsomer Leggatt became a Justice of the Supreme Court in April 2020.
Lord Leggatt, read Philosophy at King's College, Cambridge, studied at Harvard University as a Harkness Fellow, was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, and worked as a foreign lawyer at the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, before joining Brick Court Chambers in London in 1985.
He practised as a barrister from those chambers until 2012, specialising mainly in commercial cases. He was appointed a QC in 1997. He also sat as a Recorder on the Western Circuit for 10 years.
From 2006-2008 he was Vice-Chair of the Bar Standards Board. He was appointed a High Court Judge in 2012, assigned to the Queen's Bench Division, and was promoted to the Court of Appeal in 2018.
Lord Burrows
Justice of the Supreme Court, The Right Hon Lord Burrows
Andrew Stephen Burrows became a Justice of the Supreme Court in June 2020.
He was educated at Prescot Grammar School, Knowsley, Merseyside and Brasenose College, Oxford. He has been a barrister at Fountain Court Chambers since 1989.
He was appointed QC (hon) in 2003 and is an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple. He has been sitting as a part-time judge for over 20 years, first as a Recorder and then as a Deputy High Court Judge.
He was a Law Commissioner for England and Wales (1994-1999) and the President of the Society of Legal Scholars (2015-16). He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2007 and has written many books and articles especially on contract, tort, unjust enrichment, and statute law.
He was formerly Professor of the Law of England at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College.