For anyone who has set their mind to a legal career, kowing the various layers of the judicial system is critical.  There are several layers of courts and tribunal services providing what we call ‘the law’ in UK.  There are Circuits, High Court, appeal Court and eventually the very top of the tree is the Supreme Court.  This was formed in 2009, creating complete separation between the senior judges and the Lords – the upper house of parliament.  This makes an absolute emphasis of the independence of the ‘Law Lords’, ensuring the utter transparancy between parliament and the courts.  These full time, highly qualified  judges carried out judicial work of the House of Lords until July 2009 when they left parliament to become Justices of the new UK Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court is the final court of appeal in UK and hears appeals on arguable points of law of the greatest public importance for the whole of the UK, including Scotland for civil cases  but only England, Wales & NI for criminal cases. Scotland has their own  High Court Of Judiciary to which appeals can be made from lower courts in criminal cases.     A many faceted system offering thousands of good careers!