The Masters of the Bench are responsible for the governance of the Inn and are elected by their peers.
By Mr John Stevenson (Senior Communications Officer), Published
From left to right: Judge Lynne Townley, Edmund Vickers QC, George Peretz KC, HHJ Edward Hess and Chief Justice Rehana Mungly-Gulbul, Chief Justice and Head of the Judiciary of Mauritius
On 18th October 2022, Lynne Townley, (Lecturer on The City Law School’s Bar Vocational Studies course) was called to the High Table as an elected Bencher of Middle Temple.
The Masters of the Bench are responsible for the governance of the Inn and are elected by their peers from the Inns.
Benchers also act as ambassadors of the Inn and are involved in the education and mentoring of student members of the Inn, for example, by sitting on scholarship committees and teaching on new practitioner programmes.
The Inn has one Royal Bencher, His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales.
Lynne was called to the Bar in 1996 and has been the recipient of the Harmsworth Scholarship and the Robert Garraway Rice pupillage prize. She was called to the Northern Irish Bar in 2018 and was chair of the Association of Women Barristers from 2018-21.
Crown Prosecution Service
She was made a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2021.
Lynne has spent a number of years in public service, including the Crown Prosecution Service (as a Crown Advocate, Advocacy Assessor and Advocacy Manager). She was also a Senior Policy Advisor to the Director of Public Prosecutions and national policy lead on homicide, honour-based violence and FGM.
She drafted the 2009 edition of the Code for Crown Prosecutors and was a member of the Ministry of Justice’s Murder Review Advisory Group (reviewing the law on murder and partial defences to murder), in addition to the Home Office/Foreign and Commonwealth Office advisory group on forced marriage.
Lynne has been a lecturer in Bar Vocational Studies (BVS) at City, University of London since 2016.
In 2021, she was appointed as a Fee-paid Judge of the Employment Tribunals and of the First Tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care) (Mental Health). She is a published author in the fields of criminal law and legal skills. She is a co-founder of the Oxford University Press National Mooting Competition and Chair of the Middle Temple Historical Society.