Henry Brooke (judge)

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Sir Henry Brooke (born 19 July 1936) is a British judge. He became a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1996, and became Vice-President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in 2003. He retired from judicial office on 30 September 2006.

His parents were British Conservative politicians, Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor and Barbara Brooke, Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte and Baroness Brooke of Cumnor. His older brother is another Conservative politician, Peter Brooke, Baron Brooke of Sutton Mandeville. He also has two younger sisters, Honor Miller and Margaret Pulfer.

He did National Service in the Royal Engineers, and then studied classical literature and ancient history at the University of Oxford. He was called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 1963, and was Junior Counsel to the Crown in Common Law from 1978 to 1981. He took silk to become a Queen's Counsel in 1981, and was a Recorder from 1983 to 1988.

He practiced at Fountain Court until he was appointed as a High Court Judge in the Queen's Bench Division in 1988, and received the customary knighthood. He was chairman of the Law Commission from 1993 to 1995, and was promoted to become a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1996. He was the judge in charge of the modernisation of the English law courts from 2001 to 2004. He has been Vice President of the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) since 2003.

He was President of the Society for Computers and Law for nine years, and has was a major player in the formation of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) ^[1], of which he has been the Chairman of trustees since 2000. He became General Editor of The White Book (Civil Procedure Rules) in 2004^[2], and is a hereditary trustee (now a fellow) of the Wordsworth Trust.

He is married with four children.