The judges of the Commercial Court

This report contains:

  • an overview of the current Commercial Court judges and the duties they carry out
  • individual profiles outlining each judge's career path and an analysis of the cases they advocated on and heard
Posted April 2024
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This month’s Signal Disputes profiles the current crop of Commercial Court judges, detailing their career highlights and, using The Lawyer’s Litigation Tracker, analyses data around the cases they advocated on and heard.

As one might expect, the Commercial Court’s judges are picked from lawyers who have spent most of their time in practice in commercial or financial law.

The Commercial Court currently has 14 judges — 12 men and two women. Only one of them, Mr Justice Foxton, the judge in charge of the Commercial Court, works exclusively in the Court, and only for his two-year term in post. The rest spend their time at several other courts, particularly the Administrative Court, the Chancery Division and the Technology and Construction Court.

Eleven of the judges went to Oxbridge, one studied at King’s College London, one at University College Cardiff and one at the University of Manchester, although the latter two went on to postgraduate degrees at Cambridge and Oxford, respectively.

All 14 judges are former barristers, although one, Mr Justice Henshaw, was a partner at Linklaters for six years before moving to Brick Court.

The current judges have collectively wracked up an impressive 1,101 decisions in their time at the Commercial Court, including 614 main or substantial judgments.

To find out more about each of the Commercial Court judges read the full report.

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Posted April 2024
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