TalkMatters supports the work of Oasis of Peace UK.
The Lawyers’ Group of Oasis of Peace UK invites you to register for our 13th Annual Philip Rueff Lecture
Baroness Hale of Richmond – “Life as a Lady Law Lord”
Our speaker, Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE, PC, FBA hardly needs any introduction. She was professor of law at Manchester University specialising in social welfare law, family law, mental health law and women and the law. She was a member of the Bar and, in 1984, became the youngest person and the first woman ever to be appointed to the Law Commission. Over the course of the nine years spent at the Law Commission, she instigated a number of key reforms in family law and mental health law. She initiated and led the Commission’s work which produced the Children Act 1989.
In 1994, she was appointed a High Court Judge sitting in the Family Division; in 1999 she was appointed a Lady Justice of Appeal; and on 12th January 2004 became the first ever woman Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. She sat in the House of Lords and subsequently in the Supreme Court becoming its President from 2017 until her retirement in 2020. Generations of law students have studied, and will in future study, her judgments and opinions written in a style that renders them easily assessable, highly persuasive and always sympathetic.
She is accurately described in the UKSC Blog as “a very unconventional Justice. She is … a regular and passionate speaker about issues such as feminism, equality and human rights – qualities which have made her one of the Court’s most popular and well known figures.”
Lady Hale has visited Israel several times with the British-Israeli legal exchange and as Lionel Cohen lecturer at the Hebrew University. She also has an honorary degree from Bar-Ilan University.
