Lady Hale is the United Kingdom’s most senior judge.  She became the first, and sadly the only, woman ‘Lord of Appeal in Ordinary’ in 2004, after a varied career as an academic lawyer, law reformer and judge. She was educated at Richmond High School for Girls in North Yorkshire and Girton College, Cambridge (where she is now Visitor) and was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 1969. She taught Law at Manchester University from 1966 to 1984, eventually specialising in family and social welfare law, and also practised for a while at the Manchester Bar.

During her time in Manchester, she was well acquainted with the planning Bar there, through her first husband, John Hoggett QC, and counted both the late Mrs Justice Patterson and the late Mr Justice Gilbart among her friends. 

In 1984 she became the first woman to serve on the Law Commission, a statutory body which promotes the reform of the law. There she led the work of the family law team, resulting (among others) in the Children Act 1989 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. She was also a founder member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and chair of its Code of Practice Committee from 1990 to 1994, when she was appointed a Judge of the Family Division of the High Court. She was promoted to the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in 1999 and in 2004 to the House of Lords. Along with the other ‘Law Lords’, she transferred to the newly established Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009. She became its Deputy President in 2013 and its President in 2017.

While at Manchester University she was joint founding editor of the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. She is author and co-author of a number of books, including The Family, Law and Society: Cases and Materials (6^th edition 2009) and Mental Health Law (6^th edition, 2017). She was a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation from 1987 to 2002, Chancellor of the University of Bristol from 2004 to 2016 and Treasurer of Gray’s Inn in 2017 She also helped to establish the United Kingdom Association of Women Judges in 2003 and from 2010 to 2012 served as President of the International Association of Women Judges.

In her home town of Richmond, North Yorkshire, she is a Freeman of the Company of Fellmongers and its Master from 2017 to 2018; a Patron of the Richmondshire Landscape Trust, of the Richmondshire Museum and of the Richmond and the Dales branch of Soroptimists International; in January 2018, she was given the Freedom of Richmond by the Town Council.

She is married to Dr Julian Farrand, QC, a former Law Professor, Law Commissioner and Ombudsman. Between them they have four children and seven grandchildren.