Mary Arden, Lady Arden of Heswall


Mary Howarth Arden, Baroness Mance, , known professionally as Lady Arden of Heswall, is an English judge.
She currently serves as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Before that, she was a judge on the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.

Biography

Mary Arden was born in Liverpool, the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Cuthbert Arden, of Heswall, Cheshire, a solicitor who had served with the Royal Garrison Artillery, and Mary Margaret. Her grandfather was a partner in Gamon Arden and Co., a Liverpool firm of solicitors. Her father and brother, Roger, joined the family firm which merged with Hill Dickinson in 2007. She was brought up in south Liverpool and educated at Huyton College. She read law at Girton College, Cambridge, where she gained a starred first, and took an LLM degree at Harvard Law School in 1970 as a Kennedy Scholar. She married Jonathan Mance in the Lady Chapel at Liverpool Cathedral in 1973; they have three children together - two daughters and a son. By virtue of her marriage, she is entitled to be styled The Lady Mance, but is instead known by her own judicial title.
She was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1971, and joined Lincoln's Inn in 1973. She practised at Erskine Chambers from 1971 to 1993, mainly in company law. She became a QC in 1986, and served as Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster. She is an Honorary Fellow of Royal Holloway, University of London, and of Liverpool John Moores University.
She was appointed to the High Court on 30 April 1993, becoming the first female High Court judge to be assigned to the Chancery Division. As is customary, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the same time. Her husband joined the Queen's Bench Division in October 1993, making them the first married couple to sit on the High Court bench. That feat has now been matched by Sir Peter Openshaw and Dame Caroline Swift. Arden was chairman of the Law Commission from 1996-99.
Her husband became a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1999. On 2 October 2000, she was also appointed to the Court of Appeal. The couple became the first married couple both to sit on the Court of Appeal.
Other posts held by Arden include her membership of the Steering Group of the Company Law Review, and a current post as Head of International Judicial Relations for England and Wales. She is a member of the Advisory Board, Centre of Commercial Law; of the Council of the Statute Law Society; of the Board of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, as well as being President of the Trinity Hall Law Society, and of the Association of Women Barristers. She is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague.
Arden's appointment to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, replacing her husband on the court, was announced in June 2018, to take effect on 1 October 2018.

Honours

Arden's judgments include: