Her Honour Frances Kirkham, a door tenant at Atkin Chambers, was honoured with a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2011 for Services to the Legal Profession and to the Administration of Justice.
Previously a partner at three national solicitors’ practices in Birmingham, Frances Kirkham was appointed a senior circuit judge, as the designated Technology & Construction Court (“TCC”) judge in Birmingham, in October 2000. As TCC judge in Birmingham, she was initially responsible for all TCC work commencing or transferred into Birmingham. The majority of this was High Court work. She case managed and tried cases with complex technical content including disputes arising in the construction and engineering industries, those involving IT and computer hardware and software, and disputes about manufacturing plant and equipment. As a result of the large increase in work, a second TCC judge was appointed in Birmingham.
She is available to accept appointments as arbitrator, adjudicator and mediator, having undertaken TCC judicial mediation training in 2010.
