Nicholas Addison Phillips, Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers, (born 21 January 1938) is a British former senior judge. Phillips was the inaugural President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, holding office between October 2009 and October 2012. He was the last Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and the first Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales to be head of the English judiciary when that function was transferred from the Lord Chancellor in April 2006. Before his chief justiceship, he was Master of the Rolls from 2000 to 2005. He sits as a crossbencher. Early life Phillips was born 21 January 1938. He was educated at Bryanston School (where he was appointed a governor of the school in 1975, he has been chairman of its governors since 1981). He undertook National Service with the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, being commissioned as an officer. After two years' military service he went to King's College, Cambridge, where he read law. In 1962, he was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, where he was a Harmsworth Scholar. He undertook pupillage at 2 Essex Court Chambers (with the Anglo-American QC, Waldo Porges) and subsequently obtained a tenancy there, later moving to 1 Brick Court (now Brick Court Chambers). In 1973, he was appointed as Junior Counsel to the Ministry of Defence and to the Treasury in Maritime and Admiralty matters. On 4 April 1978, he became Queen’s Counsel. Judicial career In 1982, Phillips was appointed a Recorder and from 1987 was a full-time High Court Judge on the Queen's Bench Division, with the customary knighthood. He took an interest in legal training, and was Chairman of the Council of Legal Education from 1992 to 1997. He presided over several complex fraud trials including those covering the Robert Maxwell pension fund fraud and Barlow Clowes. In 1995, he became a Lord Justice of Appeal and was appointed to the Privy Council. On 12 January 1999, he was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and created a Life Peer under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 as Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers, of Belsize Park in the London Borough of Camden. He then succeeded Harry, Lord Woolf as Master of the Rolls on 6 June 2000. He conducted an inquiry into the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. He served as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales