Romanes Lecture - Law in a time of crisis

Speaker: Rt Hon the Baroness Hale of Richmond DBE

Brenda Hale retired as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the UK’s most senior judge, in January 2020.

After teaching law at the University of Manchester for 18 years (while also practising for a short time at the Manchester Bar), then promoting the reform of the law at the Law Commission for over nine years, she became a Judge in the Family Division of the High Court of England and Wales in 1994. In 1999 she was promoted to the Court of Appeal and in 2004 became the first and only woman ‘Law Lord’ – that is, a member of the appellate committee of the House of Lords. In 2009, the Law Lords became the Justices of the Supreme Court, and she became its first woman Justice, Deputy President in 2013 and President in 2017.

She is also President of the United Kingdom Association of Women Judges and a past President of the International Association of Women Judges. She has enjoyed working in all fields of the law, but her principal interests remain in family, welfare and equality law.