Lady Justice
Ingrid Simler Dame Ingrid Ann Simler, DBE, The Rt. Hon. Lady Justice Simler is a Judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. She is the lead Judge for Diversity. At the Bar Dame Ingrid was recognised for her expertise across a range of areas including employment law, tax litigation, public and administrative law, and human rights. Here she talks to Modern Insurance about her career and passion for equality, diversity and inclusion.
Q
Tell us a little bit about your own experiences joining the profession and how it’s changed since then?
A
I was a barrister for many years before becoming a judge. However, I started my career at a common law set where I did a little bit of everything to begin with. Progressively I got onto the Government Treasury panels, which enabled me to specialise and experience new areas of work. I became a specialist in employment, public law, and tax litigation. I was appointed the standing counsel for HMRC in 2002, which was fantastically interesting, though sometimes scary! Then in 2006 I took silk, which meant doing a lot more appellate work in the Court of Appeal and often in the Supreme Court. There came a point for me where, having been a member of the Bar Council and chaired the Bar Council’s Equality and Diversity Committee challenging the lack of diversity in the judiciary, I felt I had to put my hat in the ring. So I applied to be a judge in 2013. I didn’t expect to get it, but I did and I became a judge in the Queen’s Bench Division which deals with work across the whole spectrum of the law, from the most serious criminal trials, murder trials, and serious sexual offences, to contractual disputes, to judicial review challenges to public authorities and government, and sitting occasionally in the Court of Appeal. In 2018, I was promoted to the Court of Appeal, however I didn’t take up my role until June 2019. By statute, the number of places in the Court of Appeal is limited, as is the High Court, so you can only have 38 judges in the Court of Appeal. I had to wait for Sir Brian Leveson to retire and I stepped into his shoes.
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Sitting in the Court of Appeal brought further variety of work and, in addition to all the other areas of work, I’m now dealing with appeals from cases in family matters and cases in what would traditionally be called the Chancery Division, now the Business and Property court. It’s hugely varied, interesting, challenging, and actually a huge privilege. The most amazing thing for me is that having had a wonderful career at the Bar, I had the opportunity when turning 50 to start a whole new career, which has been equally amazing so far and I have no doubt will continue to be. Rather than this being an icing on the cake career situation, it feels as if it were a whole new career. Although I‘m still dealing with the law, and I’m still in court, sitting on the other side of the bench is a very different experience to fighting the case for your client. There are different pressures, different responsibilities, and it’s surprising how different the experience is. I also thought, prior to becoming a judge, that it must be very lonely but I was very wrong about that. It’s been collegiate and my fellow judges are supportive, friendly, and obviously very intelligent.
Q A
Can you share with us any particular challenges during your career?
From a gender perspective, there have been huge challenges during that time - despite the huge strides being made, I don’t think they have all been resolved. When I was called to the Bar in 1987, the numbers of men and women were pretty close to equal at entry level. That applies to the solicitor side of the profession too. The difficulty is the attrition rate; when you look at the number of women at partner and QC level for the Bar, the female representation is significantly reduced. I think 16% of women are QCs, whereas for
