13/11/2026
Congratulations to Dame Janet Smith DBE, who has received the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Inspirational Women in Law Awards, run by The Next 100 Years.
Dame Janet has a long association with Lincoln’s Inn. She was admitted to the Inn in 1969 and called to the Bar in 1972. She practised for 20 years before being appointed to the High Court, while also raising three children. She was elected a Bencher in 1992, and in 2002 she became a Lady Justice of Appeal, only the fourth woman to sit in the Court of Appeal. In 2012 she served as Treasurer of the Inn.
Beyond the bench, Dame Janet led some of the most significant public inquiries of recent decades, including the Shipman Inquiry. Her portrait by Richard Stone hangs in our Great Hall, where it is a daily reminder to our members and students of her remarkable career.
Read more in the The Law Society Gazette: https://ow.ly/pP6q5105IBm
Image credit: The Rt Hon Dame Janet Smith DBE by © Richard Stone (original on display in the Great Hall, Lincoln's Inn). All rights reserved.
