Terence Etherton

Sir Terence Michael Elkan Barnet Etherton MR (born 21 June 1951) is the Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice, the second most senior judge in England and Wales. He previously served as Chancellor of the High Court, the head of the Chancery Division of the High Court of England and Wales, from 2013 to 2016.

Early life

Etherton attended Holmewood House School and St Paul's School, and studied history and law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.^[2] He was in the British Sabre team from 1977 to 1980 and qualified for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

Legal career

Etherton was called to the bar (Gray's Inn) in 1974 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1990. He was appointed a High Court judge on 11 January 2001^[3] and assigned to the Chancery Division, receiving the customary knighthood. In August 2006, he was appointed Chairman of the Law Commission,^[4] the statutory independent body created by the Law Commissions Act 1965 to keep the law under review and to recommend reform where needed.

On 29 September 2008, on expansion of the Court of Appeal from 37 to 38 judges, Etherton was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal. He was sworn in on 29 September 2008,^[5] and received the customary appointment to the Privy Council. On 11 January 2013, he was appointed Chancellor of the High Court.^[6]

On 3 October 2016, Etherton succeeded Lord Dyson as Master of the Rolls.^[7]

In October 2016 Etherton was one of the three judges forming the divisional court of the High Court in proceedings concerning the use of the royal prerogative for the issue of notification in accordance with Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (the Lisbon Treaty) (Santos and Miller, Applicants -v- Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Respondent).

Affiliations

Etherton was a Non-Executive Director Riverside Mental Health Trust (1992-1999), Chairman of Broadmoor Hospital (1999-2001) and Chairman of West London Mental Health NHS Trust (2000-2001).

In 2005, Etherton was installed as an honorary fellow of Royal Holloway College, University of London and in 2007 he was made an honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.^[8] He was President of the Nicholas Bacon Society, Corpus Christi's law society, from 2001 to 2013.

In January 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in law by City University, London.

Also in 2009 he was appointed President of the Council of the four Inns of Court (COIC) for a three-year term.

He has been an Honorary Professor at Kent University since 2011.

He became the honorary President of the Property Bar Association and the Chairman of its Trust Law Committee in 2012.

Etherton has been a Visiting Professor of Law at Birkbeck, University of London since 2010 and lectured on subjects including diversity in the judiciary and equity and trusts on the Birkbeck, University of London LLB and LLM Qualifying Law Degrees. He is Patron of the Birkbeck Law Review.

Etherton is Senior Warden at West London Synagogue.^[9]

Personal life

Etherton entered a civil partnership in 2006.^[10] On his appointment as Lord Justice of Appeal in 2008, he said, "My appointment also shows that diversity in sexuality is not a bar to preferment up to the highest levels of the judiciary".^[11]

On 10 December 2014, pursuant to legislation allowing couples in civil partnerships to convert the relationship to marriage, Etherton and his civil partner Andrew Stone were married in a Reform Judaism wedding ceremony at West London Synagogue.^[12]

Notes and references

Masters of the Rolls
Taylor Cromwell Hales Southwell Beaumont Hare Cordell Gerard Ellesmere Kinloss Phelips Julius Caesar Digges Charles Caesar Colepeper Lenthall Grimston Churchill Trevor Jekyll Verney Fortescue Strange Clarke Sewell Kenyon Arden Grant Plumer Gifford Lyndhurst Leach Cottenham Langdale Romilly Jessel Brett Lindley Alverstone Smith Collins Cozens-Hardy Swinfen Eady Sterndale Hanworth Wright Greene Evershed Denning Donaldson Bingham Woolf Phillips Clarke Neuberger Dyson Etherton