Sir Stephen Charles Laws, (born 28 January 1950) is a British lawyer and civil servant who served as the

First Parliamentary Counsel Parliamentary counsel are lawyers who prepare drafts of legislation to be passed into law. The terms parliamentary drafter, parliamentary draftsman, legislative drafting officer and legislative counsel are also widely used. These terms are used ...

between 2006 and 2012. Laws read law at

Bristol University The University of Bristol is a public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Bristol, which had ...

, graduating in 1972. He was the first in his family to go to University. After a year lecturing at Bristol, Laws was

called to the Bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

, and following

pupillage A pupillage, in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Kenya, Malaysia, Pakistan and Hong Kong, is the final, vocational stage of training for those wishing to become practising barristers. Pupillage is similar to an apprenticeship, during which ba ...

and a brief period practising, he joined the

Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

in 1975 as a legal assistant. He transferred to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel the next year, and excepting two secondments to the

Law Commission A law commission, law reform commission, or law revision commission is an independent body set up by a government to conduct law reform; that is, to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations or proposals for legal chang ...

, stayed there until his retirement, rising first to Deputy Parliamentary Counsel in 1985, and then Parliamentary Counsel in 1991. He replaced Sir Geoffrey Bowman as First Parliamentary Counsel in 2006. As head of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, Laws was responsible for the drafting of all the government legislation which is laid before

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. Alongside the

Treasury Solicitor The Government Legal Department (previously called the Treasury Solicitor's Department) is the largest in-house legal organisation in the United Kingdom's Government Legal Profession. The department is headed by the Treasury Solicitor (formall ...

and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Laws was one of the three most senior lawyers in the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

. He undertook his

LLB A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

, graduating in 1972, and was thus the first non-

Oxbridge Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford, Universities of Oxford and University of Cambridge, Cambridge, the two oldest, wealthiest, and most prestigious universities in the United Kingdom. The term is used to refer to them collect ...

graduate to hold the office. Laws was appointed a CB in the

1996 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1996 were appointments by most of the sixteen Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other c ...

. He was promoted to KCB in 2011. On retiring as First Parliamentary Counsel in 2012, Laws was asked in an interview for ''Civil Service World'' whether he had been a victim of

nominative determinism Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work or interest that fit their names. The term was first used in the magazine ''New Scientist'' in 1994, after the magazine's humorous "Feedback" column no ...

. He replied that his choice of career was more influenced by his father's interest in the law, but conceded that “hereditary nominative determinism” may have been at work. Laws is currently a senior research fellow at

Policy Exchange Policy Exchange is a British conservative think tank based in London. In 2007 it was described in ''The Daily Telegraph'' as "the largest, but also the most influential think tank on the right". Policy Exchange is a registered charity; it most ...

's Judicial Power Project.

References

Living people First Parliamentary Counsel Members of the Middle Temple Alumni of the University of Bristol Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Honorary King's Counsel 1950 births {{UK-gov-bio-stub

See also

References