Lord (Peter) Goldsmith QC, PC is London Co-Managing Partner, and Chair of European and Asian Litigation, at Debevoise & Plimpton. Lord Goldsmith served as the UK’s Attorney General from 2001–2007, prior to which he was in private practice as one of the leading barristers in London.
Lord Goldsmith practised from Fountain Court Chambers from 1972–2001, specialising principally in commercial, corporate and international litigation and appellate work. He became Queen’s Counsel in 1987 at the early age of 37 and has judicial experience as a Crown Court Recorder and a Deputy High Court Judge.
Lord Goldsmith was appointed Attorney General in 2001, acting as chief legal adviser to the government on matters of domestic, European and international law. He represented the government in numerous cases in UK and international courts. He also argued as counsel in the House of Lords two of the 15 cases regarded as the most important British cases of the last 150 years.
He has appeared at all levels of courts in the United Kingdom and in many cases in the House of Lords, the Privy Council and the Court of Appeal as well as international and European courts and in the courts of a number of other jurisdictions including the highest court in the Caribbean.
Lord Goldsmith was made a Life Peer in 1999 and Privy Counsellor in 2001. He is a Bencher of Gray’s Inn, and has been a visiting professor of European Legal Studies at Columbia University, New York. He has also been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by The University of Law, London.
He is a graduate in law from Cambridge University with double first–class honours and a master’s from University College London. In addition to the Bar of England and Wales, he is admitted to a number of other bars on a permanent (Belize, British Virgin Islands, New South Wales, Paris, Northern Ireland) or case-by-case basis (e.g. St. Kitts and Nevis, Cayman, Bahamas). He is also a Registered Foreign Lawyer at the Singapore International Commercial Court.
