Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond
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Brenda Marjorie Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE, PC (born January 31, 1945) became the first ever woman to become a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876.
Born in Yorkshire, the daughter of teachers, Brenda Hale was educated at Richmond High School for Girls and later studied at Girton College, Cambridge, where she read Law and graduated with a starred first and top of her class. After becoming assistant lecturer in Law at the University of Manchester, she was called to the Bar in 1969, topping the list in the finals for that year.
Working part time as a barrister, Hale spent eighteen years working mostly in academia, finally becoming Professor of Law at Manchester in 1986. Two years earlier she had achieved the distinction of becoming the first woman and youngest person ever to be appointed to the Law Commission, overseeing a number of important reforms in family law during her nine years with the Commission. In 1989 she was made a Queen's Counsel and a Recorder, and in 1994 became a judge in the Family Division of the High Court of Justice.
In 1999 Lady Hale became only the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeal, also entering the Privy Council at the same time. In 2003 it was announced that she was to become the first female Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and the following year she was on her appointment created a life peer as Baroness Hale of Richmond, of Easby in the County of North Yorkshire.
Brenda Hale is also Chancellor of Bristol University, to which position she was elected in 2004.