Woolf Committee Biographies
Lord Woolf
Was called to the Bar in 1955 and from 1973-74 was junior counsel, Inland Revenue. During this time he represented the Revenue in the majority of their leading cases before the High Court, Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. In 1974 he was appointed first Treasury Counsel, a post he held for five years. During this time he appeared in a great many of the most important cases of the period.
Lord Woolf was appointed to the Queen’s Bench of the High Court in 1979, became a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1986 and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1992. Between 1996 and 2000 he held the position of Master of the Rolls and in 2000 was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, a position from which he retired in September 2005. Lord Woolf is a Privy Counsellor. He continues to be a part-time judge of the Appellate Committee of the House of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In 2003, he was appointed a non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong, an appointment that he continues to hold. In 2006 he was asked by the Qatar Government to establish and be the first President of the Qatar Financial Centre’s Civil and Commercial and Appeal Court.
He joined Blackstone Chambers in October 2005. He is an accredited mediator and a fellow and a chartered arbitrator of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Lord Woolf has a long-standing interest in alternative dispute resolution and mediation. His report, Access to Justice, 1996 was generally acknowledged to have transformed civil procedure in England and Wales and been a catalyst for the development of ADR in England. He also chaired the network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the European Union’s Working Group on mediation.
In 1990 he made a report, the “Strangeways Report,” into the British Prison System for the Government which is still regarded as a blue-print for a secure, efficient and humane rehabilitative Prison System. In 2005/6, on behalf of the Council of Europe and the President of the European Court of European Rights he conducted a “Review of the Working Methods of the ECHR”. He was then appointed one of the Group of Wise Men looking into the long-term reform of that court. He is Chairman of the sub committee of the House of Lords on Parliamentary Standards and a member of the Committee on the Constitution.
Lord Woolf is Chairman of the Bank of England’s Financial Market’s Law Committee, is a joint editor of a standard text book on judicial review (De Smith, Woolf and Jowell), has written numerous articles for legal journals and frequently speaks at conferences around the world. He is Chairman of the Council of University College, London, where he is also a visiting Professor of Law. He is an honorary visiting Professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is Visitor to Downing College Cambridge. He was Pro Chancellor of London University and also holds honorary degrees from twelve universities including London, Oxford, Cambridge and Malaya.
He is an Hon. Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences, UCL and the US College of Trial Lawyers and Hon Member of the American Law Institute. He is president, chairman or patron of many charities.
