Former Justices
Lord Kitchin
1 October 2018 - 29 September 2023
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.
Lady Arden of Heswall, DBE
1 October 2018 - 24 January 2022
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.
Lady Black of Derwent
2 October 2017 - 10 January 2021
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 Kerr of Tonaghmore
1 October 2009 to 30 September 2020
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 was the first Justice of the Supreme Court to come from Northern Ireland.
Lord Kerr died on 1 December 2020.
Lord Wilson of Culworth
26 May 2011 to 9 May 2020
Nicholas Allan Roy Wilson, Lord Wilson of Culworth became a Justice of the Supreme Court in May 2011.
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.
Lord Carnwath of Notting Hill, CVO
17 April 2012 to 15 March 2020
Robert John Anderson Carnwath, Lord Carnwath of Notting Hill, CVO became a Justice of the Supreme Court in April 2012.
After studying law at Trinity College, Cambridge, Lord Carnwath was called to the Bar (Middle Temple) in 1968 and took silk in 1985. He served as Attorney General to the Prince of Wales from 1988 to 1994.
He was a judge of the Chancery Division from 1994 to 2002, during which time (1999 to 2002) he was also Chairman of the Law Commission. Lord Carnwath was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2002.
Between 2007 and 2012 he was Senior President of Tribunals and led the planning and implementation of the reforms of the tribunal system following the Leggatt report.
Lady Hale of Richmond, DBE
1 October 2009 to 10 January 2020
Brenda Marjorie Hale, Lady Hale of Richmond, DBE took up appointment as President of the Supreme Court in September 2017, succeeding Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury. This following her appointment as Deputy President from June 2013. In October 2009 she became the first woman Justice of the Supreme Court.
In January 2004, Lady Hale became the United Kingdom’s first woman Lord of Appeal in Ordinary after a varied career as an academic lawyer, law reformer, and judge.
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 Visitor of Girton College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor of Kings College London. She previously served as Chancellor of the University of Bristol. 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 Sumption
11 January 2012 to 9 December 2018
Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption became a Justice of the Supreme Court in January 2012.
After reading history at Magdalen College, Oxford, and serving for four years as a history Fellow of the College, Lord Sumption was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1975 and took Silk in 1986. His practice covered all aspects of Commercial, EU and Competition, Public and Constitutional Law.
He was appointed as a Deputy High Court Judge in 1992 and served as a Recorder between 1993 and 2001. He was appointed as a Judge of the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernsey in 1995.
Lord Sumption was a Judicial Appointments Commissioner from 2006 to 2011. He is also an accomplished historian.
Lord Hughes of Ombersley
9 April 2013 to 11 August 2018
Anthony Philip Gilson Hughes, Lord Hughes of Ombersley became a Justice of the Supreme Court in April 2013.
Lord Hughes was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1970 and served as a Recorder of the Crown Court from 1985 to 1997. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1990 and was later appointed a judge of the High Court (Family Division from 1997 to 2003; and Queen's Bench Division from 2004 to 2006).
In 2006, he was appointed a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, serving as the Vice President of its Criminal Division from 2009 until his appointment as Justice of the Supreme Court in April 2013.
Lord Mance
1 October 2009 to 6 June 2018
Jonathan Hugh Mance, Lord Mance was appointed Deputy President of the Supreme Court in September 2017. This following his original appointment as a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2009.
In October 2005, Lord Mance became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. 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 also sat in the Commercial Court.
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 represented the United Kingdom on the Council of Europe's Consultative Council of European Judges from 2000 to 2011, being elected its first chair from 2000 to 2003. He currently chairs the Executive Council of 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 Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony
1 October 2009 to 30 September 2017
Anthony Peter Clarke, Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony 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 Neuberger of Abbotsbury
1 October 2012 to 4 September 2017
David Edmond Neuberger, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury was appointed President of the Supreme Court in 2012, the second person to hold that office since 2009 when the Court replaced the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. He previously held the post of Master of the Rolls from 1 October 2009.
Born on 10 January 1948, Lord Neuberger was educated at Westminster School, later studied Chemistry at Christ Church, Oxford. After graduating he worked at the merchant bank, N M Rothschild & Sons from 1970-1973 until he entered Lincoln's Inn and was called to the Bar in 1974.
Lord Neuberger was made a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1987 and became a Bencher for Lincoln's Inn in 1993. His first judicial appointment was as a Recorder from 1990 until 1996 when he was appointed a High Court judge in the Chancery Division and was then the Supervisory Chancery Judge for the Midland, Wales and Chester and Western Circuits 2000 - 2004.
Since 1999 Lord Neuberger has been Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Spoliation of Art (in the Holocaust). Between 2000 to 2011 he was governor of the University of Arts London and from 2013 to 2014 Chairman of the Schizophrenia Trust. In 2014 he became a patron of MHUK.
In January 2004 he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal. He also led an investigation for the Bar Council into widening access to the barrister profession. In 2007 he was made a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and created a life peer as Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury in the County of Dorset.
Lord Toulson
9 April 2013 to 22 September 2016
Roger Grenfell Toulson (23 September 1946 to 27 June 2017) was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1969 and became a bencher in 1995. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1986 and served as a Recorder of the Crown Court from 1987 to 1996. In 1996, he was appointed to the High Court (Queen's Bench Division). He sat in the Commercial Court and in the Administrative Court and was then Presiding Judge on the Western Circuit from 1997 to 2002.
Between 2002 and 2006, Lord Toulson was Chairman of the Law Commission of England and Wales, after which he was appointed to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in 2007. He has also served on the Judicial Appointments Commission for England and Wales.
Lord Toulson was appointed Justice of the Supreme Court in April 2013. He retired in September 2016 but continued to serve on the Supreme Court's Supplementary Panel.
Lord Toulson died on 27 June 2017.
Lord Hope of Craighead, KT
1 October 2009 - 26 June 2013
James Arthur "David" Hope, Lord Hope of Craighead, KT was the first Deputy President of the Supreme Court, having previously served as Second Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
Lord Hope was appointed Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1996. Prior to this 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 of Gestingthorpe
1 October 2009 to 17 March 2013
Robert Walker, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe 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.
Lord Walker died on 17 November 2023.
Lord Dyson
19 April 2010 to 30 September 2012
John Anthony 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 Dyson served as Master of the Rolls from 2012 to 2016.
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, KG
1 October 2009 to 30 September 2012
Nicholas Addison Phillips, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, KG was 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.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
1 October 2009 to 9 April 2012
Simon Denis Brown, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood 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 Brown died on 7 July 2023.
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
1 October 2009 to 26 June 2011
Alan Ferguson Rodger, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry (18 September 1944 to 26 June 2011) was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in October 2001.
Lord Rodger graduated with an MA, LLB from Glasgow University and then did a D.Phil at Oxford. He was a junior research fellow of Balliol and then a fellow of New College (1970-1972). He became a member of the Faculty of Advocates (the Scottish Bar) in 1974, Clerk of Faculty (1976-1979) and a QC in 1985.
He was Home Advocate Depute from 1986 to 1988 before becoming Solicitor general for Scotland (1989-1992) and Lord Advocate (1992-1995). He was made a Life Peer and Privy Councillor in 1992. Lord Rodger was appointed a Court of Session judge in 1995 and Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General of Scotland, in succession to Lord Hope of Craighead, in 1996. He was an Honorary Bencher of Lincoln's Inn.
Lord Rodger wrote many books and articles on Roman and Scots law. These included 'The Courts, the Church and the Constitution' (2008). He was a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a corresponding of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. He became High Steward of the University of Oxford in 2008.
Lord Rodger died on 26 June 2011.
Lord Collins of Mapesbury
1 October 2009 to 7 May 2011
Lawrence Antony Collins, Lord Collins of Mapesbury was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in April 2009.
Lord Collins read law at Cambridge University, and subsequently took a graduate degree in international law at Columbia University, New York. He qualified as a solicitor in 1968, and became a partner in Herbert Smith & Co in the City of London in 1971, specialising in international law.
In 1997 he became one of the first two solicitors to be appointed practising Queen’s Counsel, and he was appointed a Deputy High Court judge in the same year. In 2000 he was the first solicitor to be appointed to the High Court bench (Chancery Division) direct from private practice, and in 2007 the first former solicitor to be appointed to the Court of Appeal.
Since 1987 he has been the general editor of Dicey and Morris (now Dicey, Morris and Collins), on the Conflict of Laws, the leading work in that field, and he is the author of numerous books and articles on international law. Since 1975 he has been a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and since 2011 a Professor of Law at University College London.
In 1994 he as awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws by Cambridge University, and in the same year he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Since 1989 he has been an elected member of the Institut de droit international. He is an honorary fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. He retired in May 2011 but sat regularly until the end of July 2011 as an Acting Justice.
Lord Saville of Newdigate
1 October 2009 to 30 September 2010
Mark Oliver Saville, Lord Saville of Newdigate was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1997. On January 1998 he was appointed to chair the "Bloody Sunday" Inquiry into the events of 30 January 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The results were published on 15 June 2010.
Born in 1936, Lord Saville was educated at Rye Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. He read Law at University and obtained first class degrees (BA and BCL). He was awarded the Vinerian Scholarship in 1960.
He was called to the Bar (Middle Temple) in 1962. He became Queen's Counsel in 1975 and a Bencher of his Inn in 1983. He was appointed a Judge of the High Court in 1985 and a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1994.
Between 1994 and 1996 he chaired a Committee of the Department of Trade and Industry concerned with arbitration legislation. This produced an Arbitration Bill, which was enacted as the Arbitration Act 1996.
He received an Honorary Doctorate in Law from Guildhall University in 1997; and was made an Honorary Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford in 1998. He also received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from Nottingham Trent University in 2008.