Spider Woman by Lady Hale is the memoir of the former President of the Supreme Court and one of the most senior judges in England. The title of the book comes from the £12 brooch she wore when reading out the Supreme Court’s ruling that the prorogation of Parliament in September 2019 was unlawful, coming to wider public attention only at the very end of a long and distinguished career. Following her childhood in North Yorkshire, Hale graduated from Girton College, Cambridge in 1966, and did a stint at the Bar followed by two decades in academia at Manchester. She was appointed to the Law Commission in 1984, became a judge in the family division of the high court in 1994, appointed to the court of appeal in 1999, became a law lord in 2004, then the deputy president of the supreme court in 2013 and finally its president in 2017. This is a memoir very much about Hale’s remarkable trailblazing career path. It is light on details about her personal life – her divorce from her first husband is dealt with in a single sentence – but it is clear from the way she outlines the fascinating cases she has been involved with that she has a brilliant legal brain and the clarity of her prose prevents those passages from becoming too dry. I expect ‘Spider Woman’ will be appreciated the most by prospective law students, but there is inspiration for everyone here too. Many thanks to Vintage Books for sending me a copy via NetGalley.