University of Oxford
Law

Oxford has produced a large number of distinguished jurists, judges and lawyers around the world. Lords Bingham and Denning, commonly recognised as two of the most influential English judges in the history of the common law, both studied at Oxford. Within the United Kingdom, five of the current justices of the Supreme Court are Oxford-educated: Robert Reed (President of the Supreme Court), Michael Briggs, Lord Sales, Lord Hamblen, Lord Burrows, and Lady Rose; retired Justices include David Neuberger (President of the Supreme Court 2012–2017), Jonathan Mance (Deputy President of the Supreme Court 2017–2018), Alan Rodger, Jonathan Sumption, Mark Saville, John Dyson, Simon Brown, and Nicholas Wilson. The twelve Lord Chancellors and nine Lord Chief Justices that have been educated at Oxford include Stanley Buckmaster, Thomas More, Thomas Wolsey, Gavin Simonds. The twenty-two Law Lords count amongst them Lennie Hoffmann, Kenneth Diplock, Richard Wilberforce, James Atkin, Nick Browne-Wilkinson, Robert Goff, Brian Hutton, Jonathan Mance, Alan Rodger, Mark Saville, Leslie Scarman, Johan Steyn; Master of the Rolls Wilfrid Greene; Lord Justices of Appeal include John Laws, Brian Leveson and John Mummery. The British Government's Attorneys General have included Dominic Grieve, Nicholas Lyell, Patrick Mayhew, John Hobson, Reginald Manningham-Buller, Lionel Heald, Frank Soskice, David Maxwell Fyfe, Donald Somervell, William Jowitt; Directors of Public Prosecutions include Sir Thomas Hetherington QC, Dame Barbara Mills QC and Sir Keir Starmer KC.

In the United States, two of the nine incumbent Justices of the Supreme Court are Oxonians, namely Elena Kagan, and Neil Gorsuch; retired Justices include John Marshall Harlan II, David Souter, Stephen Breyer, and Byron White. Internationally, Oxonians Sir Humphrey Waldock served in the International Court of Justice; Akua Kuenyehia, sat in the International Criminal Court; Sir Nicolas Bratza and Paul Mahoney sat in the European Court of Human Rights; Kenneth Hayne, Dyson Heydon, as well as Patrick Keane sat in the High Court of Australia; both Kailas Nath Wanchoo, A. N. Ray served as Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of India; Cornelia Sorabji, Oxford's first female law student, was India's first female advocate; in Hong Kong, Aarif Barma, Thomas Au and Doreen Le Pichon currently serve in the Court of Appeal (Hong Kong), while Charles Ching and Henry Litton both served as Permanent Judges of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong; Laurie Ackermann and Edwin Cameron served on South Africa's Constitutional Court; six Puisne Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada and a chief justice of the now defunct Federal Court of Canada were also educated at Oxford.

The list of noted legal scholars includes H. L. A. Hart, Ronald Dworkin, Andrew Burrows, Sir Guenter Treitel, Jeremy Waldron, A. V. Dicey, William Blackstone, John Gardner, Robert A. Gorman, Timothy Endicott, Peter Birks, John Finnis, Andrew Ashworth, Joseph Raz, Paul Craig, Leslie Green, Tony Honoré, Neil MacCormick and Hugh Collins. Other distinguished practitioners who have attended Oxford include Lord Pannick KC, Geoffrey Robertson KC, Amal Clooney, Lord Faulks KC, and Dinah Rose KC.
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