In a pioneering career which has spanned private practice and the high court bench, Lord Justice Lawrence Collins has proved that solicitors can take on any role in the judicial system.

Lord Justice Lawrence Collins still cannot quite believe that, as a former solicitor, he now sits in judgment on those he formerly instructed as counsel.

‘Just over 30 years ago, I instructed Andrew Morritt QC in his first case as silk,’ he says. ‘I have to pinch myself to realise that, a few weeks ago, I delivered a judgment dismissing an appeal from Sir Andrew Morritt, now the Chancellor of the High Court.’

Sir Lawrence, 67, was the first – and remains the only – solicitor to be appointed directly from private practice to the High Court, and was the second solicitor to be appointed to the High Court bench, seven years after Sir Michael Sachs in 1993. Sir Michael, however, had sat as a circuit judge for nine years.

‘It is disappointing,’ says Sir Lawrence, ‘that I am still the only solicitor to be appointed straight from private practice. I am sure there are partners in the City who have the ability, but the system doesn’t really enable them to be picked out.’

His appointment to the High Court in 2000 made a ‘little piece of history’, according to the then Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine. But it had taken a decade to happen, after the Court and Legal Services Act 1990 put solicitors on an equal footing with the bar, allowing them rights of audience before all the courts, eligibility for silk, and providing, in theory, a career path to the bench.

Another eight years on, solicitors still dominate the rank of district judge, but only 89 of 653 circuit judges come from a law firm background, and only one other solicitor – Mr Justice Hodge – has made it to the High Court bench.

Sir Lawrence firmly believes that more solicitors should join the higher ranks of the judiciary. ‘Solicitors form a very large part of the legal profession,’ he says. ‘They can bring a great deal of experience with clients and with the real world, which is very valuable.

‘Solicitors have a more practical approach and a greater appreciation of the enormous costs involved in litigation, enabling them to bring a more practical approach to case management. I also think that, because solicitors have made good progress in diversity issues, it would help create a more diverse judiciary.’

However, he admits he had never thought of becoming a judge until he was invited to be a deputy High Court judge in the Chancery Division in 1997, ‘although, from then on, it was always on the cards that I would get the "tap on the shoulder"’.

When it came, he did not hesitate. ‘It was a wonderful opportunity to change career,’ he says. ‘I was head of the litigation department at Herbert Smith and nearing the age of compulsory retirement.’

He says it is a ‘great shame’ that more progress has not been made in increasing the number of solicitors becoming judges, adding firmly: ‘It has nothing to do with pay. There is still a great emphasis on advocacy experience – which I don’t believe is a particular pre-condition to judicial work – and on judicial experience.’

And that is hard to achieve, he adds, particularly for City practitioners, because there isn’t much part-time civil work and it is not easy for them to slot into the criminal process.

‘I also wouldn’t say experience of court work is absolutely essential, though it is very useful to have done litigation and to understand the process, what can go wrong and how a court should be handled,’ he says.

‘It is also important that City firms have a culture that not only allows youngsters to do pro bono work but also allows senior people to have outside legal interests, such as training for part-time judicial posts.’

His interest in law began when he was a teenager at the City of London School. His father was a commercial traveller and his mother a secretary. He was one of the first in his family to go to university, graduating from Downing College, Cambridge, with a starred first in law. Inspired by Professor Clive Parry, an international lawyer, to specialise in that field, he was tempted by academia after being offered a post at the University of Manchester. But instead he went to America to do a masters degree in international law at Columbia University in New York.

He had also considered the bar, but decided against it for two reasons – ‘one of which was wrong and one of which was right’, he says, with a gleam in his eye. ‘The wrong reason was I thought you had to be a talented advocate to succeed at the bar and I now know that is not true. The right reason was that, at that time, and possibly even now, you had to have contacts at the bar and the ability to keep yourself financially while you got on – I didn’t have the contacts and I didn’t have the money.’

Instead, he became a solicitor. ‘Clive Parry told me that if I wanted to do international law, there was only one firm for me and that was Herbert Smith because one of the senior partners was Dr F A Mann, who was a very famous international lawyer, and he became my mentor,’ he says.

He joined Herbert Smith in 1966 to do his articles before going on to specialise in private international law. A member of the Institut de Droit International and a Fellow of the British Academy, he has been the general editor of Dicey & Morris, the standard reference work on The Conflict of Laws, since 1987. His name was added as co-author in its 14th edition, published in 2006, to reflect his work and scholarship.

He became a partner at Herbert Smith in 1971 and was one of the first solicitors to become a solicitor- advocate, in 1995, as well as one of the first two solicitors to be appointed a QC in 1997. Despite enjoying advocacy, he never considered moving to the bar or changing firms. ‘In my day, people didn’t move about as much and I saw no point moving because I had a very good life, fascinating cases and wonderful colleagues,’ he says.

Some stand-out cases from his private practice career are the Laker Airways conspiracy case, where he acted for one of the British airlines; London litigation involving freezing American bank assets as a result of the Iranian hostages crisis; and the Pinochet case, where he appeared in the House of Lords acting for the government of Chile.

As with becoming a judge, Sir Lawrence had never considered becoming a solicitor-advocate. However, he was sent a message by a senior judge suggesting he apply because he had the right experience, having done a lot of advocacy in arbitration cases and before the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

‘I had occasionally wished I could do the advocacy in cases where the barristers didn’t do as well as I thought they should have done,’ he says. ‘But I was so lucky with my practice I didn’t really feel I was missing anything.’

He is disappointed that solicitor-advocates have not made more of an impact in the higher courts. ‘Those that are doing cases aren’t getting sufficient experience to enable them to compete on an equal basis with barristers,’ he says. ‘A few more solicitors are becoming QCs, but mostly they are involved in arbitration and competition work and not higher-court advocacy.’

In January last year, Sir Lawrence was appointed to the Court of Appeal – the only solicitor to have reached such high office. ‘I very much enjoyed the High Court,’ he says. ‘The perception of chancery work is that it is rather dry and limited, but it mainly involves real people and is extraordinarily stimulating.

‘However, the spread of work in the Court of Appeal is even wider – I cover everything except crime.’

One important issue facing the judiciary is improving its diversity. Members of the Society of Asian Lawyers, the Black Lawyers Network and the Society of Black Lawyers recently presented three reports to Justice Minister Bridget Prentice and the Lord Chancellor Jack Straw claiming that the appointment of judges is ‘badly skewed in favour of white, middle-class males from public schools’ (see [2008] Gazette, 24 April, 1).

Mrs Justice Dobbs, Britain’s first minority ethnic High Court judge, has argued that: ‘Clients are entitled to walk into court and feel that at least one judge there understands where they are coming from.’

However, Sir Lawrence says: ‘I don’t think the judiciary should reflect society. What I believe is important it that all members of society should have an equal opportunity to fulfil positions of responsibility. However, that is quite hard when the judiciary comes essentially from the most successful practitioners at the bar.’

The profession is becoming more diverse, he says. ‘When I was in the City, things were changing to the point that when I was involved in the admission of trainees the split between men and women was 50/50,’ he adds. ‘There was never a bar to the most able women advancing – one of my protégées was Dorothy Livingston, who did a phenomenal job juggling her career and her home life.’

He says Herbert Smith was also at the forefront of improving opportunities for lawyers from ethnic minority backgrounds. ‘People from ethnic minorities are still under-represented in the City, but I don’t think that will last,’ he adds.

But while the judiciary may not be diverse, no one can accuse it of being afraid of challenging the executive. Judges are increasingly holding ministers and legislation to account – and finding them wanting.

Sir Lawrence believes conflict between judges and government is ‘inevitable’ because of two factors – the impact of judicial review and the Human Rights Act, both of which have made the acts of government ‘much more amenable to challenge’.

He says: ‘Society is also facing a number of challenges which make it more likely that the government and the rule of law may come into conflict.’

Is it not ironic then that judges are on the one hand being criticised for being ‘pale, male and stale’ and, on the other, being criticised by some ministers – Tory in the past, now Labour – for being too liberal and too ready to challenge government policy?

Sir Lawrence says: ‘It is a paradox, because I don’t think anybody is saying that, at the moment, the judiciary is very conservative in any field – not in discrimination, nor civil rights. If you say most of the judges are white, middle-class, public school, it doesn’t follow that they conform in terms of judicial decisions to that stereotype – they don’t.’

At the heart of much of the tension between the judiciary and the executive is the balancing act between the rights of the individual and the responsibilities of the state.

These are difficult times given current threats to security, he says. ‘But the European Convention on Human Rights makes it clear there is always a balance to be struck between liberty and security,’ he adds. ‘It is a matter of trying to apply the law. There is often an element of law making, or applying existing principles to new situations in these cases, but that does not mean judges are assuming a legislative or governmental function – it is an honest attempt to apply the law.’

He is adamant that the European Convention on Human Rights has stood the test of time. ‘Criticism of the act and suggestions that we should resile from parts of it usually come out of extraordinary ignorance,’ he says. ‘We have been a party to it from 1950 and, while there may obviously be criticisms of individual decisions, on the whole I think it has worked very well.’

The growth in judicial review, which has been primarily in immigration cases, has been ‘absolutely essential’, he says, ‘because of the growth of government regulation and the need to ensure that it complies with and is administered in accordance with the law’.

However, holding the government to account has prompted some trenchant criticism from politicians. Sir Lawrence says: ‘It is a very unfortunate consequence of populism that, in recent years, politicians have felt able to criticise judges – very often on the basis of inadequate or wrong information.’ Has that damaged the judiciary? No, he says. ‘I think it actually damages the standing of politicians – provided the judiciary doesn’t retaliate in any way, which it shouldn’t.’

On developments within the legal profession, he supports the convention banning judges from returning to private practice, which was retained by the Lord Chancellor Jack Straw last November. ‘I am in favour of judges become arbitrators,’ he says, ‘but not in favour of judges becoming consultants to law firms and thereby allowing the law firm to exploit their previous position and contacts.’

He is also ‘completely against’ the introduction of ‘Tesco Law’. ‘I may be old-fashioned,’ he says, ‘but I think professionalism is extremely important. Law will otherwise become just a commodity and, once that happens, it no longer really serves the public properly.’

Old-fashioned or not, Sir Lawrence’s career as a practitioner exemplified the height of professionalism, and his obvious delight in his judicial role serves as a signpost to other practitioners: being a solicitor is no barrier to being a senior judge.

Grania Langdon-Down is a freelance journalist