Carr to be first female lord chief justice

Dame Sue Carr has been picked as the next lord chief justice of England and Wales, HM Judiciary announced this afternoon. She will take up the post on 1 October following the retirement of The Rt Hon. the Lord Burnett of Maldon on 30 September. Carr will be the first woman in the post. It is understood that the other short-listed applicant was also a woman, Dame Victoria Sharp. 

Dame Sue Carr was called to the bar by Inner Temple in 1987. As a barrister she specialised in general commercial law and took silk in 2003. Her judicial career began in 2009 in crime, when she became a recorder. She was appointed to the High Court, Queen’s Bench Division in 2013, and became a nominated judge of the Commercial Court and the Technology and Construction Court in 2014. In the same year she became a member of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal until 2016. She became a Presider of the Midland Circuit in 2016 until 2020, when she was appointed as a lady justice of appeal. In the same year she was also appointed as the senior Judicial Commissioner and Vice Chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission, a position she held until January 2023.

Carr was educated at Wycombe Abbey School and read law at Trinity College Cambridge.

The appointment of the lord chief justice is made by the King on the advice of the prime minister and the lord chancellor following the recommendation of an independent selection panel chaired by Helen Pitcher OBE, chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission. The other members were Lord Lloyd-Jones of the Supreme Court, Sue Hoyle OBE and Sarah Lee (lay and professional members of the JAC), and Lord Justice Edis, senior presiding judge. 

Carr is 58. According to the announcement, 'given the challenges of reducing the outstanding caseloads across jurisdictions and the drive for modernisation across the courts and tribunals, candidates were expected to be able to serve for at least four years'.

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