Lucy Rigby, a former partner at specialist disputes firm Hausfeld, has been appointed as one of the Labour government’s law officers in a ministerial reshuffle prompted by the resignation of transport secretary Louise Haigh last week. 

The newly elected member of parliament (MP) for Northampton North has been named solicitor-general – the UK government’s deputy chief legal adviser – following Sarah Sackman KC’s move to the Ministry of Justice as minister of state, the number two position in the department, which is led by Lord Chancellor and justice secretary Shabana Mahmood. 

Sackman, who, like Rigby, was elected for the first time in the July general election, replaces justice minister Heidi Alexander after the veteran Labour MP was appointed to the Cabinet as transport secretary following Haigh's resignation on Friday when it emerged that she had pleaded guilty to a fraud offence ten years ago.

Alexander, as the veteran journalist Joshua Rozenberg noted, addressed the Civil Justice Forum on Friday when she said, had she remained in the role, she would have aimed "to make it cheaper, easier and more straightforward for normal people — your average person on the street, the small business owner — to access justice”.

Alexander's abrupt change of brief illustrates both the volatility of modern politics and her versatility in her second stint as an MP; she served as deputy mayor for London, responsible for transport, before being re-elected.

Rigby, meanwhile, had served as an unpaid parliamentary private secretary to Mahmood ahead of her promotion, the first rung on the ladder of political appointments for new MPs.

Her appointment is notable not just for its speed but also because she is one of the few solicitors – as opposed to barristers – to hold the role of solicitor-general, all of whom have been Labour politicians, including the former Labour acting leader Baroness Harriet Harman KC, who was the first woman to hold the role. 

The former Slaughter and May associate joined Hausfeld in 2017 from consumer rights watchdog Which?, becoming a partner in 2021. At Hausfeld she specialised in large-scale opt-out collective actions before the Competition Appeal Tribunal and was part of the team that represented Which? in its intervention in Mastercard v Merricks before the Supreme Court in 2020.

Sackman, meanwhile, was a junior barrister at Matrix Chambers before entering parliament and will now support UK legal services as part of a brief which includes overseeing the Arbitration Bill, which is currently proceeding through parliament. 

She was made a KC shortly after being appointed solicitor-general. Her legal experience spans public law, planning and civil litigation.