Girton alumna and Honorary Fellow and former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lady Arden of Heswall, has been nominated to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Law from the University of Cambridge.
Lady Arden, alongside seven other distinguished individuals, is due to be admitted to her honorary degree at a special Congregation in the Senate-House on Wednesday 25 June. The University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Deborah Prentice, will preside and will be attended by staff, students and alumni as well as special guests.
Lady Arden shared:
I am deeply honoured by this announcement. Girton provided me with a firm foundation for commitment to the rule of law and fearless perseverance with a legal career, which was needed because at the time I started there were few women. There are now more women lawyers, and this award celebrates all their achievements too.
About Mary Howarth Arden, Lady Arden of Heswall
Lady Arden of Heswall became a Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2018. After growing up in Liverpool, she read law at Girton College and then went onto study at Harvard Law School. Called to the Bar in 1971, she became a Queen's Counsel in 1986 and served as Attorney General of the Duchy of Lancaster between 1991 and 1993. She served on the Court of Appeal of England and Wales from 2000 to 2018.
Her judicial career began in 1993 when she was appointed to the High Court of Justice of England and Wales as the first woman judge assigned to the Chancery Division. Alongside her judicial experience, Lady Arden has written extensively on how the law keeps pace with social change. Her two-volume book Shaping Tomorrow's Law was published in 2015. It drew strongly on her knowledge of law reform, which she began to develop while serving as Chairman of the Law Commission of England and Wales from 1996 to 1999.
Between 2005 and September 2018, Lady Arden was Judge in Charge, Head of International Judicial Relations for England and Wales. She organised bilateral exchanges between the senior Judiciary of the UK and the judiciaries of leading national and supranational courts overseas. She became a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2011 and is an ad hoc UK judge of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
- Find out more about this year’s honorary degree nominees on the University of Cambridge website.