Brenda Hale is set to make history by becoming the first female president of the Supreme Court. The 72-year-old family law expert is expected to be confirmed as the next president of the Supreme Court.
As deputy president, she is already Britain’s most senior female judge, but it is believed that Downing Street will announce her appointment in the most senior role. She will earn £225,000 a year.
Born in Yorkshire in 1945, one of three daughters, both her parents were head teachers and she went to Richmond High School for Girls before studying at Girton College, Cambridge, where she read law and graduated top of her class.
She became a law lecturer at the University of Manchester. But after topping the list in 1969’s bar finals, she was called to the Bar. She was also the first woman and youngest person to be appointed to the Law Commission, Britain’s law reform body.
Hale joined the Supreme Court in 2009, has said on the matter: “Excellence is important but so is diversity of expertise.” In June 2013 she was appointed deputy president of the Supreme Court.
A long time backer in legal circles, she has criticised the judicial appointments system for self-selecting from a pool of predominantly white men from similar economic and academic backgrounds, blaming a culture of “unconscious sexism”. According to her there is dependence on “soundings” from judges, which produced a judiciary that is “not only mainly male, overwhelmingly white, but also largely the product of a limited range of educational institutions and social backgrounds”.
“Sometimes, it can be a bit lonely,” she said at the time. Sometimes you think, wouldn’t it be good to have some other women to natter with? It rather depends upon the group of men you’re with and how much you have in common. If they’re all speaking about sport it gets a bit wearing.”
Three other supreme court posts are set to be announced at the same time, one of them a woman, taking the female tally among the 12 supreme court justices to two. The list is thought to include Lords Justice Lloyd Jones and Briggs, and Lady Justice Black.
She is one of the last judges who will be able to serve until she is 75 as she became a judge before rules were changed in 1995, to make retiring at 70 mandatory.
