The former chair of the Bar Council, Barbara Mills KC, is set to become a life peer in the House of Lords.
Mills, the co-head of the family law set 4 Paper Buildings, is included in a 26-strong list of nominees published by UK prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, ahead of his resignation today (20 July). She will sit as a Labour peer.
Last year, Mills became the first woman of colour to serve as chair of the Bar Council. While she will continue in practice as a leading family law silk, she is expected to step down as a deputy High Court judge, a role that requires political neutrality.
In a statement, the Bar Council said Mills would “bring an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and experience to the House of Lords after shining a spotlight on her priority issues as chair last year, including family law, tackling violence against women and girls, equality, diversity and inclusion, and wellbeing”.
Law Society president Mark Evans added: “Barbara is a fantastic ambassador for the legal profession,” echoing the views of many former Bar Council chairs as well as the incumbent, Kirsty Brimelow KC.
Mills’ commitment to improving diversity within the Bar was recognised in 2024 when she received the annual Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2024 Women and Diversity in Law Awards (WDLA), which are hosted by The Global Legal Post.
James Stewart, co-head of private client at Penningtons Manches Cooper and a 2024 WDLA judge, said: “Barbara Mills will be a powerful advocate for the need for family law reform and diversity now that she has been given a much-deserved voice in the upper chamber.”
Other members of Starmer’s list of new Labour peers are the Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, a former human rights and civil liberties solicitor, and two human rights lawyers, Parvais Jabbar and Saul Lehrfreund, both at Simons Muirhead Burton.
Jabbar and Lehrfreund are co-founders and co-executive directors of The Death Penalty Project, which campaigns against capital punishment.
The list also includes five Liberal Democrat and three Conservative nominees, while former Lord Justice of Appeal, Sir Brian Leveson, is one of two nominees who will sit as crossbench peers, without a political affiliation.
Leveson chaired the 2011 Leveson Inquiry, which examined press ethics and regulation in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, as well as the recent Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, which completed its work in February.
Leveson’s recommendations, which were designed to reduce court delays and were largely accepted by the government, included judge-only trials for complex fraud, a new bench division with a judge and magistrates for “either-way” offences, and the removal of the right to a Crown Court trial for offences carrying sentences of under two years.
Proposals to reform jury trials have been bitterly opposed by both the Law Society and the Bar Council, with the Criminal Bar Association taking a particularly strong line against the proposed changes.
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