Speech at the swearing-in of the Lord Chief Justice

" This is a great day for Wales. It is also a great day for England. After a brilliant academic record, which included first class degrees in each year at Cambridge, John Thomas came to the Bar in 1970. He joined one of the top commercial chambers and took silk at the age of 36. It was evident at an early stage that he was no ordinary commercial practitioner. Between 1971 and 1986, he attended the Islington Legal Advice Centre on a weekly basis. His clients there were not Greek shipping owners. They were ordinary people who needed advice with their problems. They were tenants, consumers, those who had suffered personal injury or had been sacked and many others besides..."