Lord Burrows | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom | |
| Assumed office 2 June 2020 | |
| Nominated by | David Gauke |
| Appointed by | Elizabeth II |
| Preceded by | Lord Wilson of Culworth |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1957-04-17)17 April 1957 (age 68) |
| Education | Prescot Grammar School |
| Alma mater |
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Andrew Stephen Burrows, Lord Burrows,PC, FBA (born 17 April 1957[1]) is aJustice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. His academic work centres onprivate law. He is the main editor of the compendiumEnglish Private Law and the convenor of the advisory group that producedA Restatement of the English Law of Unjust Enrichment as well as textbooks onEnglish contract law. He was appointed to theSupreme Court of the United Kingdom on 2 June 2020. AsProfessor of theLaw of England,University of Oxford and senior research fellow atAll Souls College, Oxford at the time of his appointment, he was the first Supreme Court judge to be appointed directly from academia.
Burrows was educated atPrescot Grammar School andBrasenose College, Oxford, where he received hisBA (First Class, Martin Wronker Prize for the best result in Law Finals 1978), which was later promoted toMA, and subsequently took theBCL (First Class).[2] He then studied for anLLM degree atHarvard University. He was a lecturer at theUniversity of Manchester from 1980 to 1986, a fellow and lecturer atLady Margaret Hall, Oxford from 1986 to 1994, a visiting professor atBond University and research fellow atANU in 1994, and a Law Commissioner for England and Wales from 1994 to 1999.[3] His work as a Law Commissioner included co-authorship of theLaw Commission's Report No. 242 (Privity of Contract: Contracts for the Benefit of Third Parties), published in 1996 under the chairmanship ofLady Arden of Heswall (then The Honourable Mrs Justice Arden, DBE). This led to theContracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, which significantly reformed the law of contract in England & Wales and Northern Ireland by providing for a statutory exception to the common lawdoctrines of privity and (indirectly)consideration.[4] He was then appointed as the Norton Rose Professor of Commercial Law atSt Hugh's College, Oxford.
In 2007 he was appointed as a Deputy High Court judge, sitting part-time in theCommercial Court, having previously sat part-time as aRecorder in both criminal and civil cases.[5] He was elected aFellow of the British Academy in 2007.[6] In 2010, he was appointed a Senior Research Fellow atAll Souls College, Oxford and Professor of the Law of England,University of Oxford, which he remained until his appointment in 2020 to the Supreme Court.[7] From 2015 to 2016, he was President ofThe Society of Legal Scholars. In 2015 he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of Brasenose College.[8] In private practice, Burrows was adoor tenant ofFountain Court Chambers, London. He has appeared in a number of court cases, and was appointed an honoraryQC in 2003.
Burrows' work as an academic has proved particularly popular amongst judges, withBaroness Hale of Richmond, thenPresident of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, having commented that "there are few, if any, legal scholars whose writings are more frequently cited in our courts".[9]
Burrows took up appointment as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on 2 June 2020, taking thejudicial courtesy title ofLord Burrows. He is the second Justice (afterLord Sumption) to have been appointed without first having served as a full-time judge, and the first Justice to have been appointed directly from academia.[10]
