Midland Circuit

Welcome to the new website for the Midland Circuit – it has been a while in the making but I hope it will now provide members, and visitors, with ready access to all that the Midland Circuit has to offer.

I took over the Leadership of the Midland Circuit in October 2017 because I wanted to ensure that the rich traditions of Circuit life were maintained but, most importantly, that there was a viable future for the most junior practitioners. The Midland Circuit exists to support the interests of all its members. The Circuit, for example, provides high quality professional training at negligible cost as a result of the generosity of a number of its senior members, Judges and former Judges. I have had the pleasure of observing a large number of the training sessions which take place across the year – they are invariably of the highest quality and have played a central role in allowing the Midland Circuit to consistently provide some of the country’s finest advocates. I have also been delighted to see considerable advancement in the recognition of the pressure under which we all work and the toll which such workloads can take on our personal lives. The Circuit now provides support networks for its members.

In recent years the Midland Circuit has seen significant advances in the diversity of the provision of legal services which have included the establishment of specialist Mercantile and Administrative Courts – the willingness of Government to invest in those areas is testament to the expertise in those specialist fields which exists across the Circuit. In addition to those specialist fields the Midland Circuit continues with the tradition of providing outstanding practitioners across the family, criminal and all civil jurisdictions. The Circuit has also established a thriving Women’s Group thanks to the efforts of individual members – it is something of which the Circuit is rightly proud

The Leadership of the Circuit is not a task I undertake alone. I have been fortunate to have the support of an outstanding Treasurer, Secretary and a variety of Juniors and Assistant Juniors – it would be impossible to manage the Circuit effectively without the commitment of those individuals and I am extremely grateful for their continued support.

I will one day have an opportunity to reflect upon my time as Leader of our Circuit and pause to consider the highlights of my term of office. One outstanding contender will be the Circuit dinner in February 2019 which was held to recognise the careers of Lord Hughes of Ombersley and Lord Justice Treacy – it was an evening with a very special atmosphere and served to remind all concerned of the astounding history of our Circuit. It was a genuine privilege for such an auspicious event to have fallen “on my watch”. The Midland Circuit continues to provide a significant percentage of the those in the highest Judical Offices which is a further indicator of the quality of our practitioners – I have every reason to believe that we can enhance that impressive history in the years to come. The Midland Circuit has always been an extremely sociable and welcoming Circuit – that character and tradition will never change.