4 - Lady Hale: A Feminist Towering Judge

Summary

There are many measures by which Lady Hale’s status as a towering judge may be established. She was the first woman appointed to the UK’s highest appellate court, the only woman ever to sit on the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, and the first woman deputy president and president of the UK Supreme Court. She has influenced the development of UK law across a wide range of areas, having an impact on the lives of millions of women, men and children. This chapter focuses on how Lady Hale’s feminism has shaped and informed her ‘towering’ judicial status. Drawing on a detailed examination of her jurisprudence, both on and away from the Court, it examines her jurisprudential, administrative and wider community leadership. It argues that, as a feminist towering judge, Lady Hale stands out but does not stand in isolation from her judicial peers or the legal or wider community. Through her judgments as well as her extrajudicial roles, she has used her institutional position to redistribute power, creating opportunities and spaces for others to flourish and realise their own potential, and built ladders so that others might scale the walls.