Overview of Practice

The Rt Hon Sir Robert Buckland KBE KC practises in criminal and public law and has a particular expertise in reputation management issues.

He was Lord Chancellor of Great Britain from 2019-21 and served as HM Solicitor General for nearly five years prior to that. He has over thirty years of experience in practice at the Bar, both at the self-employed Bar and later as a Law Officer. As Lord Chancellor, he was responsible for landmark reforms of Sentencing Law, Domestic Abuse Law and Divorce Law in England and Wales and has immense direct experience both as a Bill Minister and as a backbencher in the development, scrutiny and passage of legislation through Parliament, including justice, constitutional law and national security legislation. He therefore has huge experience of criminal, constitutional and public law both as practitioner and law maker, having been an MP for fourteen years to 2024.

For twenty years from the early 1990s, practising on the Wales Circuit, Robert specialised in criminal litigation, most notably drugs offences, proceeds of crime and child sexual abuse, rising to be a Grade 4 CPS Prosecutor and member of the Attorney General’s A List of Prosecuting Counsel.He was junior prosecution counsel in a wide range of cases from murder to conspiracy to defraud and regulatory offences. He was regularly a Leading Defence Junior in complex drugs conspiracies.

HM Solicitor General

Robert advised the Government on legal issues relating to all proposed legislation, and on major governmental issues that required Law Officer input; granted consents to many CPS and SFO prosecutions and Contempt of Court proceedings, made High Court referrals for the reopening of Inquests and reviewed thousands of Crown Court sentences as part of the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, personally conducting over 40 cases in the Court of Appeal. He was responsible for the approval or otherwise of Nolle Prosequi applications, Pardons and Royal Charters. He superintended the work of the CPS, the SFO and the Government Legal Department. He appeared for the United Kingdom in the ICJ’s court in The Hague on the Chagos Islands dispute with Mauritius.

Reported Cases

In addition, he conducted cases involving domestic abuse, stalking, coercive controlling behaviour, child sex offences and hate crime, undertook national security work of a secret nature and contempt of court cases.

Robert lectures regularly and extensively on UK constitutional law and is an active contributor to media and journalism on legal and constitutional issues. Having been at or near to the centre of political and public life in this country for over a decade, Robert is extensively well-versed in reputation management issues and has much experience in the promotion of standards of governance and the Rule of Law in other jurisdictions.

Robert is Senior Counsel and Head of Policy at Payne Hicks Beach LLP, where he advises on specific cases and leads on developments in AI and legal practice, with particular emphasis on misinformation and deepfakes. He is a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahamni Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, researching the impact of AI on the ethics of justice. Robert is a member of the Policy Unit at DAC Beachcroft, where he advises clients on national and international legal and political issues.

In February 2025, Robert was appointed Third Church Estates Commissioner, helping to represent the Church Commission in General Synod, chairing key committees and exercising a quasi-judicial role in determining church reorganisation and closure proposals.