James Wood Lecture 2025: Constitutional Rights with a Privy Council Twist

Speaker: Lady Rose, Justice of the UK Supreme Court

Dame Vivien Rose, Lady Rose became a Justice of the Supreme Court on 19 April 2021.

Lady Rose took her first degree at Newnham College, Cambridge and a post-graduate degree at Brasenose College, Oxford. She was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in 1984 and was in practice at Monckton Chambers for ten years. She was appointed Standing Counsel to the Director General of Fair Trading in 1992.

In 1995 she left private practice to join the Government Legal Service serving as a legal adviser on financial services at HM Treasury until 2001. In 2002 she was appointed to the Senior Civil Service and moved to the Ministry of Defence as Director of Operational and International Humanitarian Law. From 2005 to 2008 she was seconded to the Office of Counsel to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

In 2006 she was appointed to her first judicial role as a fee-paid Chairman of the Competition Appeal Tribunal. She was appointed to further tribunal posts and became a Recorder in the criminal jurisdiction, South Eastern circuit in 2010. In May 2013 Dame Vivien was sworn in as a High Court Judge in the Chancery Division. She was President of the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) between 2015 and 2018 and was a nominated judge of the Financial List from its inception. She was appointed to the Court of Appeal in January 2019.

James Wood Lecture

The James Wood Lecture is the principal public lecture hosted annually by the University of Glasgow School of Law, having first been delivered by Lord Fraser of Tullybelton in 1987. Recent James Wood lecturers have included Eleanor Sharpston QC, Professor Dame Hazel Genn, Lord Sumption and Ian Forrester QC. It is generously supported by the James Wood Bequest Fund.

The lecture will be held in the Senate Room on the 30th of October at 17:30. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception.