Professor Stephen Mayson

Called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn (of which he is now a Bencher and chairman of its Regulatory Panel).

After a period as a tax lawyer with a Magic Circle law firm, he developed an international reputation as a strategic advisor in the legal sector, working on a range of strategic, financial, ownership and governance issues with law firms and corporate and government legal departments. More recently, he has held a number of non-executive directorships and retained strategic advisory relationships with law firms and law-related businesses, and is currently non-executive chairman of an ABS law firm.

Since 1992, Stephen has also held professorships in the UK and abroad, and is presently Honorary Professor of Law at University College London, attached to the Centres for Ethics & Law and Access to Justice. He has a particular interest in the regulation of legal services, and conducted an independent review of the regulatory framework in England & Wales from 2018, submitting his main report to the Lord Chancellor in June 2020 (followed in 2022 and 2024 by supplementary reports on consumer harm and the public interest). He was subsequently appointed by the Lord Chancellor to the expert panel supporting Sir Christopher Bellamy’s review of criminal legal aid, and has recently served on the taskforce established by the Institute of Business Ethics to examine business ethics and the legal profession.