Sonia Harris
British High Court Judge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dame Sonia Ruth Harris (born 12 September 1974) is a British High Court Judge.[2][3]
Ms Justice Harris | |
|---|---|
.svg) | |
| Justice of the High Court | |
| Assumed office 30 September 2024[1] | |
| Appointed by | Charles III |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 September 1974 Coventry, UK |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford University of British Columbia |
Education
Harris attended Coventry Blue Coat Church of England School.[4] In 1993, she received a BA law degree in jurisprudence from Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with first-class honours.[5] In 2009, she subsequently earned an LLM degree at the Peter A. Allard School of Law of the University of British Columbia.[6][7] Harris had a visiting appointment at University of Victoria, Canada and University of New South Wales, Australia supported by a British Academy research grant.[8]
Career
Academic
Harris was called to the bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1998. From 1999 to 2006 she was a senior lecturer at Durham University.[9] From 2006 to 2014 she was Reader and then Professor of Family Law and Policy at Birmingham School of Law.[10] Between 2012 and 2014 she was head of the University of Birmingham's Centre for Employability, Professional Legal Education and Research (CEPLER).[11] While at Birmingham she was an Honorary Door Tenant at St Philips Chambers.[12] In 2008 she became director of the Birmingham Law School LLM Programme.[13] Between January and April 2010, she was a visiting scholar at Stockholm University.[14] In 2012 she was appointed special advisor to the House of Lords' Select Committee on Adoption.[15] She is an honorary professor at the University of Birmingham.[16]
Judge
In 2010 Harris was appointed as a Deputy District Judge. In 2014 she was appointed as District Judge.[17] In 2018 she was appointed as Circuit Judge and was authorised to sit as a High Court Judge in the Family Division. In 2019 she was appointed the designated family judge for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. In 2024 she was appointed Senior Circuit Judge and designated family judge at Wolverhampton Combined Court Centre.[18] Harris was on the advisory group of the Children's Rights Judgement.[19] She is a member of the United Kingdom Association of Women Judges and the International Association of Women Judges.[20]
On 30 September 2024, Harris was appointed a judge of the Family Division of the High Court following several retirements.[3][21] She received the customary damehood in 2025.[22]
Publications
Author
- Family Law: Text, Cases and Materials with Joanna Miles (2011) Pub. OUP ISBN 9780199563821
- Aboriginal Child Welfare, Self-Government and the Rights of the Indigenous Children: Protecting the Vulnerable Under International Law (2012) Pub. Routledge ISBN 9781409419549
Contributor
- Accommodating Cultural Diversity ed. Stephen Tierney (2007) Pub. Routledge ISBN 9781317185918
- Judicial Reasoning under the UK Human Rights Act Ed. Helen Fenwick, Gavin Phillipson, Roger Masterman (2009) Pub. CUP ISBN 9781139466769
- The Legal, Medical and Cultural Regulation of the Body Ed. Stephen W Smith, Ronan Deazley (2009) Pub. Routledge ISBN 9781138260320
- Feminist Judgements: From Theory to Practice ed. Clare McGlynn, Erika Rackley, Rosemary Hunter (2010) Pub. Bloomsbury ISBN 9781847317278
- Fifty years of Family Law: Essays for Stephen Cretney Ed. Rebecca Probert, Chris Baron (2012) Pub. Cambridge ISBN 9781780680521
- The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Commentary Ed. John Tobin (2019) Pub. OUP ISBN 9780191544170
Editor
- The Futures of Legal Education and the Legal Profession with Hilary Sommerlad (2015) Pub. Hart Publishing ISBN 9781849466554
Articles
Harris has contributed articles to:
- British Yearbook of International Law[23]
- Child and Family Law Quarterly[24]
- Human Rights Quarterly[25]
- The International and Comparative Law Quarterly[26]
- International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family[27]
- Journal of Law and Society[28]
