She is the only woman to have been appointed to that position. She served as Deputy President of the Supreme Court from to She was the third person and first woman to serve in the role. In June , she announced her decision not to seek reappointment on the Hong Kong court after the end of her term in July, mentioning the impact of the controversial Hong Kong national security law. Both her parents were headteachers.
She has two sisters. Hale lived in Redcar until the age of three when she moved with her parents to Richmond, North Yorkshire. She was educated at the Richmond High School for Girls now part of Richmond School , where she and her two sisters were all head girls. Hale was one of six women in her class, which had men, and graduated with a starred first and top of her class in After becoming an assistant law lecturer at the Victoria University of Manchester now the University of Manchester in and lecturer in , she was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in , topping the list in the bar finals for that year.
Working part-time as a barrister , Hale spent 18 years mostly in academia, becoming Reader in and Professor of Law at Manchester in In , she was appointed Queen's Counsel. In December , during an interview to mark the centenary of the Sex Disqualification Removal Act , Lady Hale argued that the judiciary needed to become more diverse so that the public have greater confidence in judges.
Hale called for a more balanced gender representation on the UK's highest court and swifter progress promoting those from minority ethnic backgrounds and with "less privileged lives". However, Lady Hale objected to the idea of positive discrimination because "no one wants to feel they have got the job in any way other than on their own merits".
As President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom , Lady Hale along with all 11 other Justices of the Supreme Court, unanimously found that Johnson's prorogation was unlawful , terminating the suspension of Parliament.
