Sir Nicholas Archibald Hamblen (born 23 September 1957), styled The Hon. Mr Justice Hamblen, is a Justice of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. He was previously a QC

Queen's Counsel

Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...

, specialising in commercial law.

Early life and education

He graduated from Oxford University in 1979, with the top first in law. He later became an Eldon scholar and he sits on the scholarship committee. He was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship

Kennedy Scholarship

Kennedy Scholarships provide full funding for six to eight British post-graduate students to study at either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

 to attend Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

. His degrees are MA (Oxon) and LLM (Harv).

Career

He was called to the bar in 1981, and took silk in 1997. As a Queens Counsel, his principal areas of practice have been shipping, insurance and reinsurance, international sale of goods, commodities, conflicts of laws and arbitration. He has appeared in the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords and before various arbitration tribunals. He has also acted as an arbitrator in maritime, insurance and international commercial matters; as well as in ICC, LCIA, LAS, LMAA and general commercial disputes.

He became an Assistant Recorder in 1999 and a Recorder in 2000. He was appointed to sit as a Justice in the High Court in 2008.