George Andrew Midsomer Leggatt, Lord Leggatt, (born 12 November 1957) is a

Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom are the judges of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom other than the president and the deputy president. The Supreme Court is the highest court of the United Kingdom for civil and crimi ...

, the highest court of law in the United Kingdom.

Education

Leggatt's father is the former Lord Justice of Appeal Sir Andrew Leggatt. Leggatt was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

and earned a First-Class

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in Philosophy at

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...

in 1979. He was a

Harkness Fellow The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several coun ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(1979–80) and received a Diploma in Law with distinction from

City Law School The City Law School is one of the five schools of City, University of London. In 2001, the Inns of Court School of Law became part of City, and is now known as the City Law School. Until 1997, the ICSL had a monopoly on the provision of the Bar ...

in 1981.

Legal career

Leggatt was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

(

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

) in 1983 and was appointed a

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

in 1997. He joined

Brick Court Chambers Brick Court Chambers is a set of barristers' chambers in London. It specialises in Commercial, EU, Competition and Public Law work. Brick Court Chambers was founded in 1921 by William Jowitt KC, later Lord Chancellor. Its rise to prominence was ...

in 1985, where he practised commercial law, including areas such as banking, insurance, sales, and product liability law. He became a

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

in 2002 and was a deputy High Court judge. On 26 October 2012, he was appointed to the High Court, receiving the customary

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

in the

2013 Special Honours The Special Honours are issued at the Queen's pleasure at any given time. The Special Honours refer the award of the Order of the Garter, Order of the Thistle, Order of Merit, Royal Victorian Order and the Venerable Order of St John, Order of St Jo ...

, and assigned to the

Queen's Bench Division The King's Bench Division (or Queen's Bench Division when the monarch is female) of the High Court of Justice deals with a wide range of common law cases and has supervisory responsibility over certain lower courts. It hears appeals on point ...

. He was appointed as a Lord Justice of Appeal in February 2018. In July 2019, it was announced Leggatt would become a Justice of the

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (initialism: UKSC or the acronym: SCOTUK) is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the Unite ...

after the retirement of Lord Carnwath. He took the

judicial courtesy title A courtesy title is a form of address in systems of nobility used for children, former wives and other close relatives of a peer, as well as certain officials such as some judges and members of the Scottish gentry. These styles are used "by court ...

of Lord Leggatt and was sworn in on 21 April 2020, in a specially adapted ceremony due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Lord Leggatt recited the judicial oath in the presence of

Lord Reed Robert John Reed, Baron Reed of Allermuir, (born 7 September 1956) is a British judge who has been President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom since January 2020. He was the principal judge in the Commercial Court in Scotland before b ...

, the President of the Supreme Court, whilst the other Justices watched remotely. In 2016 Leggatt was elected a Fellow of Eton College.Eton College web-site
''Governing Body''
(accessed on 11 June 2019)

Cases

* , finding a duty of

good faith In human interactions, good faith ( la, bona fides) is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction. Some Latin phrases have lost their literal meaning over centuries, but that is not the case ...

can be implied in

English contract law English contract law is the body of law that regulates legally binding agreements in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the industrial revolution, it shares a heritage with countries ...

* , finding that a duty of good faith can be generally implied in law in ' relational' contracts * , finding the United Kingdom in breach of its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, (specifically Article 5). The UK lacks detention authority under international humanitarian law to capture and detain individuals for longer than 96 hours in the course of the non-international armed conflict in Afghanistan.

Notes

1957 births Living people People educated at Eton College Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of Eton College Harvard University alumni 21st-century English judges Knights Bachelor Lords Justices of Appeal Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Queen's Bench Division judges English King's Counsel {{UK-law-bio-stub