Our structure

The Chair promotes the role and work of the Law Commission and is its principal public face. He or she leads the Commissioners and represents their views to Ministers and other stakeholders. The Chair also leads on particular law reform projects and has special responsibility for overseeing the Commission’s consolidation and statute law repeals work.

Sir Peter Fraser

Sir Peter was appointed as Chair on 1 December 2023. Sir Peter was educated at Harrogate Grammar School in Yorkshire and St John’s College at the University of Cambridge (where he took both an MA in Law and a LL.M). He was called to the Bar in 1989 by Middle Temple and practised from Atkin Chambers between 1990 and 2015 when he was appointed to the King’s Bench Division. As a barrister he specialised in international arbitration, technology, engineering and construction disputes. He was appointed a Recorder of the Crown Court in 2002 and QC in 2009. He sits both as a judge of the Technology and Construction Court (being judge in Charge from 2017 to 2020) and the Commercial Court.

Professor Alison Young

Professor Alison Young joined the Law Commission in March 2024. Professor Young is the Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Robinson College. She is also an academic associate at 39 Essex Chambers,  an Emeritus Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford and an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. Prior to joining the Law Commission, she was legal advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution.

Professor Young is an award-winning author of three monographs and has published widely in public law, particularly in constitutional theory, administrative law and human rights. She is a leading advocate of dialogue theory and its application to constitutional law.

Before joining the University of Cambridge, Professor Young studied for a Law (with French) degree at the University of Birmingham, spending a year at the Université de Limoges. She then completed the BCL and D Phil at Hertford College, University of Oxford. She spent three years as a Tutorial Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, before returning to Hertford as a Fellow in Law and later Professor of Public Law at the University of Oxford.

Contact Professor Young at public@lawcommission.gov.uk
For media enquiries, contact press.office@lawcommission.gov.uk

Professor Lisa Webley

Professor Lisa Webley joined the Law Commission in September 2025. She is the Chair in Legal Education and Research and former 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 Leeds Beckett university 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.

Contact Professor Webley at propertyandtrust@lawcommission.gov.uk
For media enquiries, contact press.office@lawcommission.gov.uk

Professor Penney Lewis

Professor Lewis joined the Law Commission as Commissioner for Criminal Law in January 2020. She was formerly Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics in the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London. She became Reader in Law in 2005, and Professor of Law in 2007.

Professor Lewis received an SB in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989 and a JD from the University of Toronto in 1992. Following a judicial clerkship at the Supreme Court of Canada, she gained an MA in Medical Ethics and Law from King’s College London in 1994 and an LLM from Columbia University in 1995.

As an academic, Professor Lewis’ research was both comparative, covering multiple jurisdictions and different legal systems, and interdisciplinary, intersecting with history, psychology, ethics, medicine and science. Her research covered two separate subject areas. In the area of criminal evidence and procedure, her work focused on prosecutions for historic childhood sexual abuse and the law governing corroborative and supporting evidence. She has also published widely in the field of medical law, with a particular interest in the relationship between the criminal law and medicine.

Professor Lewis has been a Member of the Board of the Human Tissue Authority (HTA), the statutory regulator for human tissue and organs, a member of Genomics England’s Ethics Advisory Committee and a member of the UK Donation Ethics Committee. She is currently a member of the Home Office Science, Technology and Ethics Advisory Committee.

Contact Professor Lewis at criminal@lawcommission.gov.uk
For media enquiries, contact press.office@lawcommission.gov.uk

Professor Solène Rowan

Professor Solène Rowan joined the Law Commission in September 2025. She is the Chair of Contract Law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, and an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University.

Professor Rowan’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.

Professor Rowan 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.

Contact Professor Rowan at commercialandcommon@lawcommission.gov.uk
For media enquiries, contact press.office@lawcommission.gov.uk

Claire Bassett

Claire is the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists, Chair and Non-Executive Director of the Serious Fraud Office and the Property Ombudsman and a Non-Executive Director of the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Chartered Insurance Institute.  

Previously she was Vice Chair of the Internet Watch Foundation and until May 2022 she was Deputy Director General of the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Prior to this Claire was Chief Executive (Designate) of the Shadow Trade Remedies Authority, and Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission. Claire has also been Chief Executive at the Parole Board and the Criminal Cases Review Commission.   

Earlier in her career, Claire was a Director of Nacro and Chief Executive of Connexions Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. She also held various roles at the Legal Services Commission and began her career as a management trainee in the construction industry.  

Dr Hannah White

Dr Hannah White is currently Chief Executive of the non-partisan think tank the Institute of Government, having previously led the secretariat for the Committee on Standards in Public Life (Cabinet Office), and held various senior roles in the House of Commons. She has a range of executive and non-executive board experience.   

Hannah has a PhD in Human Geography. She started her career as a parliamentary clerk in the House of Commons, working on select and legislative committees and advising on parliamentary procedure.

 

Joanna Otterburn and Stephanie Hack are joint Chief Executives of the Commission.

Joanna Otterburn

Since qualifying as a solicitor, Joanna has been a Judicial Assistant in the Court of Appeal, Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the High Court and Senior Presiding Judge, and an adviser to the senior judiciary and government ministers on sensitive, challenging and innovative policies. Joanna was a magistrate in South East London prior to heading the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office.

Stephanie Hack

Stephanie practised as a barrister in Australia before moving to the UK. She has worked in legal, policy and corporate roles, including at the Law Commission and as Private Secretary to the Lord Chief Justice; she holds a Masters in Public Policy from King’s College London.