Two new Law Commissioners appointed

The Government has today announced the appointment of two new Commissioners at the Law Commission for a period of five years. With these appointments, all four Commissioners will be female for the first time in its sixty-year history.

Professor Lisa Webley will replace Professor Nick Hopkins (who leaves the Commission at the end of  June 2025 after almost 10 years) as the Commissioner for Property, Family and Trust Law from 1 September 2025.

Professor Solène Rowan will replace Professor Sarah Green (who left in September 2024) as the Commissioner for Commercial and Common Law  from 8 September 2025.

Sir Peter Fraser, Chair of the Law Commission said,

“I am delighted to welcome Professor Webley and Professor Rowan to the Law Commission. Their impressive experience and academic records will be invaluable to the teams they lead and the wider Commission. I would also like to thank Nick Hopkins for his many years of committed service as a Commissioner and David Hertzell for providing interim support and leadership to the Commercial and Common Law Team.”

Professor Lisa Webley said,

“The Law Commission has a sixty-year legacy of outstanding evidence-based law reform. I feel really privileged to be joining such an exceptional team. I look forward to returning to my family law roots to work on law reform in relation to duties and protections within families, the rights of and safeguards for children and the law relating to finance, property and trusts matters more broadly.“

Professor Solène Rowan said,

“The Law Commission has made an outstanding contribution to the modernisation of our laws over the last six decades. It is recognised around the world as setting the benchmark for legal innovation.

“I am honoured to join such a prestigious institution and to have the opportunity to continue its fine tradition of evidence-based law reform. I look forward to working as part of the team to maintain the pre-eminent status of English commercial law and to develop the common law in the interests of all segments of our society.”

BIOGRAPHIES

Professor Lisa Webley

Professor Lisa Webley is the Chair in Legal Education and Research and the immediate past Head and Dean of Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham. She holds a Senior Associate Research Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London and visiting professorships at Portsmouth and Leeds Beckett universities and the Sir Zelman Cowen Centre Victoria University, Australia.

Before joining the University of Birmingham as an academic in 2018, Professor Webley studied for a Law (with French) degree at the University of Birmingham, spending a year at the Université de Limoges. She then completed the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law Chester, an MA in Legal Practice at the University of Westminster and a PhD in family law at IALS University of London. She subsequently read for an MA in Higher Education at the University of Westminster, a Certificate in Sociology and Social Policy at Birkbeck College and is reading part-time for an MSt in Practical Ethics at Pembroke College, University of Oxford.  She was Professor of Empirical Legal Studies at the University of Westminster prior to taking up her position at the University of Birmingham.

Professor Solène Rowan

Professor Solène Rowan is currently the Chair of Contract Law, the Vice-Dean for Students, Culture & Community, and the Director of the LLB / Master 1 programme at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London. She is also an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and a Visiting Professor at Paris Panthéon-Assas University.

Solène’s principal areas of expertise are contract law, commercial law, and comparative law, all with a particular focus on remedies. She is an award-winning author of two monographs and articles in leading international legal publications, and a member of the editorial team of Chitty on Contracts. Her work has been widely cited by law reformers and courts domestically and abroad.

Solène was previously a Professor at the University of Oxford, an Associate Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Australian National University, and a Fellow and College Lecturer in Law at Queens’ College, Cambridge. She read law as an undergraduate at King’s College London and Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne University and obtained an LLM and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.