Sonia Harris


Dame Sonia Ruth Harris is a British High Court Judge.

Education

Harris attended Coventry Blue Coat Church of England School. In 1993, she received a BA law degree in jurisprudence from Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with first-class honours. In 2009, she subsequently earned an LLM degree at the Peter A. Allard School of Law of the University of British Columbia. Harris had a visiting appointment at University of Victoria, Canada and University of New South Wales, Australia supported by a British Academy research grant.

Career

Academic

Harris was called to the bar in 1998. From 1999 to 2006 she was a senior lecturer at Durham University. From 2006 to 2014 she was Reader and then Professor of Family Law and Policy at Birmingham School of Law. Between 2012 and 2014 she was head of the University of Birmingham's Centre for Employability, Professional Legal Education and Research. While at Birmingham she was an Honorary Door Tenant at St Philips Chambers. In 2008 she became director of the Birmingham Law School LLM Programme. Between January and April 2010, she was a visiting scholar at Stockholm University. In 2012 she was appointed special advisor to the House of Lords' Select Committee on Adoption. She is an honorary professor at the University of Birmingham.

Judge

In 2010 Harris was appointed as a Deputy District Judge. In 2014 she was appointed as District Judge. In 2018 she was appointed as Circuit Judge and was authorised to sit as a High Court Judge in the Family Division. In 2019 she was appointed the designated family judge for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. In 2024 she was appointed Senior Circuit Judge and designated family judge at Wolverhampton Combined Court Centre.
Harris was on the advisory group of the Children's Rights Judgement. She is a member of the United Kingdom Association of Women Judges and the International Association of Women Judges.
On 30 September 2024, Harris was appointed a judge of the Family Division of the High Court following several retirements. She received the customary damehood in 2025.

Publications

Author

  • Family Law: Text, Cases and Materials with Joanna Miles Pub. OUP
  • Aboriginal Child Welfare, Self-Government and the Rights of the Indigenous Children: Protecting the Vulnerable Under International Law Pub. Routledge

    Contributor

  • Accommodating Cultural Diversity ed. Stephen Tierney Pub. Routledge
  • Judicial Reasoning under the UK Human Rights Act Ed. Helen Fenwick, Gavin Phillipson, Roger Masterman Pub. CUP
  • The Legal, Medical and Cultural Regulation of the Body Ed. Stephen W Smith, Ronan Deazley Pub. Routledge
  • Feminist Judgements: From Theory to Practice ed. Clare McGlynn, Erika Rackley, Rosemary Hunter Pub. Bloomsbury
  • Fifty years of Family Law: Essays for Stephen Cretney Ed. Rebecca Probert, Chris Baron Pub. Cambridge
  • The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Commentary Ed. John Tobin Pub. OUP

    Editor

  • The Futures of Legal Education and the Legal Profession with Hilary Sommerlad Pub. Hart Publishing

    Articles

Harris has contributed articles to: