Topic: Peter Goldsmith

Peter Henry Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith, PC, QC (born 5 January 1950), is a former Attorney General for England and Wales and Northern Ireland. On 22 June 2007, Goldsmith announced his resignation which took effect on 27 June 2007, the same day that prime minister, Tony Blair, stepped down. Goldsmith was the longest serving Labour Attorney General. He currently works for US law firm Debevoise & Plimpton as head of its European litigation practice.

Goldsmith was born in Liverpool and educated at Quarry Bank School (now Calderstones School) before reading law at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and University College London. He was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1972, practising from Fountain Court Chambers in London. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1987 and a Deputy High Court Judge in 1994 and he was elected the youngest ever Chairman of the Bar of England and Wales in 1995. He was created a Labour Life Peer in 1999, as Baron Goldsmith, of Allerton in the County of Merseyside. He was appointed Her Majesty's Attorney General in June 2001. One of his first acts was to discuss breaches of the injunction against publishing the whereabouts of the offenders in the James Bulger murder case. He became a Privy Counsellor in 2002.

Goldsmith has also held a number of posts in international legal organisations, including Council Member of the International Bar Association (IBA) and of the Union Internationale des Avocats. From 1998 until his appointment as Attorney General he was co-Chairman of the IBA’s Human Rights Institute. Between 1997 and 2000 he was Chairman of the Financial Reporting Review Panel, a non-departmental public body responsible for enforcing financial reporting standards. In 1997 he was elected to membership of the American Law Institute and made a member of the Paris Bar.