On the advice of the Judicial Service Commission, His Excellency the Governor has today sworn in the Right Honourable Sir Mark Howard Potter as a new appointment as Justice of Appeal in accordance with section 57(2)(a) of the Constitution.

Profile:

Sir Mark Potter Call date: 1963

Silk date: 1981

Summary of Practice:

Sir Mark Potter was called to the Bar in 1963 and was appointed Queens Counsel in 1981.

He practised at Fountain Court and specialised in litigation and arbitration in the fields of insurance, banking, agency, international sale and carriage of goods, shipping and commodity and energy disputes. Also in the field of professional negligence.

In 1988 he was appointed to the High Court (Commercial Court), trying all types of commercial disputes and arbitration appeals. He dealt with a number of cases in the Lloyds litigation in the 1990s. In 1995, he was appointed judge in charge of the Commercial Court in its Centenary year, prior to his promotion to the Court of Appeal in 1996.

As an appellate judge he sat in the full range of civil and commercial appeals and continued to do so for a proportion of each term throughout his appointment as Head of Family Justice between 2005 and 2010. In April 2010, Sir Mark Potter retired as a judge of the Court of Appeal, President of the High Court Family Division and President of the Court of Protection and returned to the field of Commercial Law as an arbitrator, with appointments to date in insurance (including Bermuda form), international share purchase agreement and energy disputes.

Sir Mark has wide knowledge of regulatory matters. At the bar, he served successively as Chairman of the Bar Professional Conduct Committee and the Bar Public Affairs Committee. In the latter role, he devised (with Piers Ashworth QC) and introduced the Bar Mutual Insurance Scheme. From 2000-2005, he was Chairman of the Lord Chancellor’s Consultancy Panel advising the government on the reform, regulation and organisation of the legal profession. As Head of Family Justice he encouraged the promotion of out of court mediation and conciliation for the settlement of family disputes and introduced procedural reforms to that end.