Family Law

Mrs Justice Bracewell, the Family Division's longest serving judge and editor-in-chief of Family Court Practice, died on 9 January 2007 after a long illness. In 2006 she celebrated her fiftieth year in the legal profession. Called to the Bar in 1955, Mrs Justice Bracewell was appointed a QC in 1978, a circuit judge on the Northern circuit in 1983 and in 1990 was elevated to the High Court. Sir Mark Potter, President of the Family Division, in a tribute to Bracewell J said that her wide circle of friends admired the stoicism with which she fought her illness in the last months of her life: Joyanne Bracewell was the Senior High Court Judge of the Family Division, universally admired and respected for the quality of her decisions and the fairness, humanity and extreme care which she invariably displayed in reaching them. Those qualities will be sorely missed by her fellow judges, the advocates, and litigants who appeared before her and her wide circle of friends within the family justice system".