Lawrence Antony Collins, Baron Collins of Mapesbury (born 7 May 1941) is a British judge and former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. He was also appointed to the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong on 11 April 2011 as a non-permanent judge from other common law jurisdictions. He was formerly a partner in the British law firm Herbert Smith. He is now a full time international arbitrator, an adjunct professor of law at NYU School of Law and continues to sit as a member of the HKFCA. Early life Collins was born on 7 May 1941 and educated at the City of London School, and then at Downing College, Cambridge, graduating with a starred first in Law. He received an LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School in New York City and was admitted as a solicitor in 1968, becoming a partner at Herbert Smith in 1971 until his appointment as a judge in 2000. He served as head of the Litigation and Arbitration Department at Herbert Smith from 1995 to 1998. He and Arthur Marriott were the two first practising solicitors ever to be appointed Queen's Counsel, on 27 March 1997. As a solicitor-advocate, he appeared before the English Court of Appeal, the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, and the European Court of Justice. He acted for the Government of Chile in the case to extradite General Pinochet. Judiciary In 1997, he was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge, becoming a full-time Judge in the Chancery Division on 28 September 2000, at which time he left Herbert Smith. He was the first solicitor to be appointed as a judge of the High Court direct from private practice, and only the second solicitor to be appointed, after Sir Michael Sachs in 1993, who had previously sat as a circuit judge for nine years. In a landmark case in 2006, he required file sharers who had refused to settle with the British Phonographic Industry to pay damages running into thousands of pounds. His appointment as a Lord Justice of Appeal (judge of the Court of Appeal) was announced on 11 January 2007, and he was sworn to the Privy Council a month later. On 8 April 2009, it was announced that he would replace Lord Hoffmann (who retired on 20 April 2009) as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. He is the first solicitor to