The Rt. Hon. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury (in the county of Dorset) was appointed as Master of the Rolls with effect from 1 October 2009.
The Master of the Rolls is the Head of Civil Justice and the second most senior judge in England and Wales.
Born on 10 January 1948, Lord Neuberger was educated at Westminster School and later studied Chemistry at Christ Church, Oxford. After graduating he worked at the merchant bank, N M Rothschild & Sons from 1970-1973 until he entered the Hon Society of Lincoln’s Inn and was called to the Bar in 1974.
Lord Neuberger was made a Queen’s Counsel (QC) in 1987 and became a Bencher for Lincolns Inn in 1993. His first judicial appointment was as a Recorder from 1990 until 1996 when he was appointed a High Court judge in the Chancery Division and was then the Supervisory Chancery Judge for the Midland, Wales and Chester and Western Circuits 2000 - 2004.
In 1999 Lord Neuberger chaired the Advisory Committee on the Spoliation of Art (in the holocaust). Since 2000 he has been a governor of the University of Arts London and in 2003 became the Chairman of the Schizophrenia Trust.
In January 2004 he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in January 2004 he also he led an investigation for the Bar Council into widening access to the barrister profession. In 2007 he was made a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and created a life peer as Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury in the County of Dorset.
He succeeded Lord Clarke of Stone-Cum-Ebony as the Master of the Rolls in July 2009.
Lord Neuberger is married with two sons and one daughter.
