Sir Ben Stephens will join as a Justice on 1 October 2020, following the retirement of Lord Kerr on 30 September. He studied at Manchester University before being called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 1977, the Bar of England and Wales in 1978 and the Bar of Ireland in 1996. He took silk in 1996.
His judicial career has included time as a High Court Judge in Northern Ireland, appointed in 2007, assigned to the Family Division from 2008 and to the Queen’s Bench Division from 2014.
For six years until 2014, he was Hague Convention Liaison judge for international cases involving child abduction. He was a judge of the Tax and Chancery Chamber of the Upper Tribunal from 2013 to 2017 and he is Chairman of the Council of Law Reporting for Northern Ireland.
He has been a Commissioner in the Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission since June 2013, and was appointed Senior Lord Justice of Appeal in September 2017.
Lord Reed, President of the Supreme Court, said: ‘We look forward to his making a significant contribution to the work of the court and the development of the law, drawing on the extensive experience which he has gained from a distinguished judicial career.’
