Barbara Mills KC just got handed a life peerage, and the legal Twitter sphere is absolutely losing it. The 4 Paper Buildings family law co-head landed on Keir Starmer's 26-person nominee list as a Labour peer, making her the first non-white woman to ever lead the Bar Council who's also heading to the upper chamber.
She'll keep practicing as a silk but has to ditch the deputy High Court judge gig since that role demands political neutrality. The Bar Council and Law Society president Mark Evans both sang her praises, and she picked up an Outstanding Achievement Award at the WDLA back in 2024 for her diversity push at the Bar.
The list also features Sadiq Khan and two Simons Muirhead Burton human rights lawyers who co-founded The Death Penalty Project. Sir Brian Leveson scored a crossbench seat, which feels wild considering the Criminal Bar Association and basically every major legal body absolutely torched his court reform proposals, judge-only fraud trials and all.
She'll keep practicing as a silk but has to ditch the deputy High Court judge gig since that role demands political neutrality. The Bar Council and Law Society president Mark Evans both sang her praises, and she picked up an Outstanding Achievement Award at the WDLA back in 2024 for her diversity push at the Bar.
The list also features Sadiq Khan and two Simons Muirhead Burton human rights lawyers who co-founded The Death Penalty Project. Sir Brian Leveson scored a crossbench seat, which feels wild considering the Criminal Bar Association and basically every major legal body absolutely torched his court reform proposals, judge-only fraud trials and all.
