Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond

Brenda Marjorie Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE, PC, FBA (born 31 January 1945) is a British legal academic, barrister and judge. In 2004, she was the first woman to join the House of Lords as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876.

Hale was born in Yorkshire, one of three daughters. Both of her parents became headteachers. She was educated in Richmond at the Richmond High School for Girls, and later studied at Girton College, Cambridge, where she read Law and graduated with a starred first and top of her class. After becoming assistant lecturer in Law at the University of Manchester, she was called to the Bar in 1969, topping the list in the bar finals for that year.

Working part time as a barrister, Hale spent eighteen years working mostly in academia, finally becoming Professor of Law at Manchester in 1986. Two years earlier, she had achieved the distinction of becoming the first woman and youngest person ever to be appointed to the Law Commission, overseeing a number of important reforms in family law during her nine years with the Commission. In 1989, she was made a Queen's Counsel and a Recorder, and in 1994 became a judge in the Family Division of the High Court of Justice. Upon her appointment, as is convention, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1999, Hale followed Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to become only the second woman to be appointed to the Court of Appeal, also entering the Privy Council at the same time.

In 2003, it was announced that she was to become the first female Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and the following year she was on her appointment created a life peer as Baroness Hale of Richmond, of Easby in the County of North Yorkshire.

Lady Hale of Richmond is also Chancellor of the University of Bristol and Visitor of Girton College, Cambridge, to which positions she was elected in 2004.

She has been married twice. She first married fellow barrister John Hoggett, QC; they had one daughter. She married fellow Law Commissioner Julian Farrand shortly after they were both divorced in 1992, after which she reverted to her maiden name (Hale). Farrand was later Pensions and Insurance Ombudsman.

tyles

Formal:
*Miss Brenda Hale (1945 – 1989)
*Miss Brenda Hale, QC (1989 – 1994)
*The Hon. Mrs Justice Hale, DBE (1994 – 1999)
*The Rt Hon. Lady Justice Hale, DBE, PC (1999 – 2003)
*The Rt Hon. The Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE, PC (2003 – )

Social:
*Miss Brenda Hale (1945 – 1989)
*Miss Brenda Hale, QC (1989 – 1994)
*Dame Brenda Hale, DBE (1994 – 1999)
*The Rt Hon. Dame Brenda Hale, DBE, PC (1999 – 2003)
*The Rt Hon. The Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE, PC (2003 – )

External links

* [http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,8150,1119488,00.html Profile] from "The Guardian", 9 January 2004