Case studies of all levels of the judiciary are available on the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) website.
Case studies: judges in courts
The following case studies are from a series of interviews by the Law Society Gazette challenging some of the myths surrounding judicial appointment.
- Her Honour Judge Frances Kirkham
- District judge Chloë Philips
- District judge Michael Walker CBE
- District judge (magistrates' court) Tan Ikram
- Lord Justice of Appeal Gary Hickinbottom
- Deputy High Court judge Alexandra Marks
Deputy district judge Aneeta Borwick talks to the JAC about how working experience in magistrates' courts was useful experience, and training to become a judge while pregnant.
Case studies: tribunals – judges and fee-paid members
Pieter de Waal, general counsel at the Law Society and a fee-paid tribunal member at the Information Tribunal, describes his current position, career highlights and tribunal role.
Thaira Bibi, a salaried immigration judge and a nominated diversity and community relations judge, describes her career, the skills she brought to the bench as a solicitor, and her tips for solicitors thinking about becoming a judge.
George Lubega talks about his role as an independent adjudicator for the Traffic Penalty Tribunal in England and Wales.
Samina Majid, fee-paid judge of the First-tier Tribunal, tells us about her current judicial role and her experience as a magistrate.
Nicola Chandler, disability qualified tribunal member of the Social Entitlement Chamber, explains what she learned from Pre-application Judicial Education (PAJE) programme.
Nicholas Aleksander, part-time judge, shares his insights on sitting in the tax tribunals adjudicating on disputes between taxpayers and HM Revenue & Customs.
Case studies: becoming a High Court judge or deputy High Court judge
Mr Justice Murray offers his valuable advice and experience to solicitors who are applying for appointment to the Bench in our podcast and in a JAC case study.
Tim Smith, BCLP partner and deputy High Court judge, talks to Yael Levy Ariel about his judicial career, shares advice to aspiring solicitor judges and explains why he thinks appointing more solicitors to the bench is important in our podcast.
David Stone was appointed as a deputy High Court judge in 2017. He's also an intellectual property solicitor and partner at Allen & Overy. He talks about:
- what it’s like to be a solicitor working as a deputy High Court judge (17 minutes)
- the telephone assessment part of the application (4 minutes)
Case studies: recorders
In the following case studies, solicitors write about their experience of becoming a judicial recorder:
Comments from judges
The following comments describe two solicitors' experience of becoming a judge:
"I think solicitors have become more specialist and that narrows your field of work and then when you start to sit as a judge you have got to be available to do a much wider range than your practice. You are learning all the time as you face new situations. And you have to use your knowledge and intellectual ability and your knowledge keeps growing."
"I knew nothing about immigration when I applied for it, because you can pick it up. I knew nothing about financial regulation when I started off, but actually what they're looking for is a generalist, somebody who knows about evidence and procedure on the basis that if you've been doing it for seven years in whatever field. You're probably intelligent enough to pick up the actual law, as long as you've got the procedure and the evidence under your belt, which you should do after seven years."