# Sonia Harris

Dame Sonia Ruth Harris, DBE (born 12 September 1974) is a British High Court Judge.

## Education

Harris attended Coventry Blue Coat Church of England School. In 1993, she received a BA law degree in jurisprudence from Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with first-class honours. In 2009, she subsequently earned an LLM degree at the Peter A. Allard School of Law of the University of British Columbia. Harris had a visiting appointment at University of Victoria, Canada and University of New South Wales, Australia supported by a British Academy research grant.

## Career
### Academic

Harris was called to the bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1998. From 1999 to 2006 she was a senior lecturer at Durham University. From 2006 to 2014 she was Reader and then Professor of Family Law and Policy at Birmingham School of Law. Between 2012 and 2014 she was head of Birmingham University's Centre for Employability, Professional Legal Education and Research (CEPLER). While at Birmingham she was an Honorary Door Tenant at St Philips Chambers. In 2008 she became director of the Birmingham Law School LLM Programme. Between January and April 2010, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Stockholm. In 2012 she was appointed special advisor to the House of Lords' Select Committee on Adoption. She is an honorary Professor at Birmingham University.

### Judge

In 2010 Harris was appointed as a Deputy District Judge. In 2014 she was appointed as District Judge. In 2018 she was appointed as Circuit Judge and was authorised to sit as a High Court Judge in the Family Division. In 2019 she was appointed the designated family judge for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. In 2024 she was appointed Senior Circuit Judge and designated family judge at Wolverhampton Combined Court Centre. Harris was on the advisory group of the Children's Rights Judgement. She is a member of the United Kingdom Association of Women Judges and the International Association of Women Judges.
On 30 September 2024, Harris was appointed a judge of the Family Division of the High Court following several retirements. She received the customary damehood in 2025.

## Publications
### Author

* Family Law: Text, Cases and Materials with Joanna Miles (2011) Pub. OUP ISBN 9780199563821
* Aboriginal Child Welfare, Self-Government and the Rights of the Indigenous Children: Protecting the Vulnerable Under International Law (2012) Pub. Routledge ISBN 9781409419549

### Contributor

* Accommodating Cultural Diversity ed. Stephen Tierney (2007) Pub. Routledge ISBN 9781317185918
* Judicial Reasoning under the UK Human Rights Act Ed. Helen Fenwick, Gavin Phillipson, Roger Masterman (2009) Pub. CUP ISBN 9781139466769
* The Legal, Medical and Cultural Regulation of the Body Ed. Stephen W Smith, Ronan Deazley (2009) Pub. Routledge ISBN 9781138260320
* Feminist Judgements: From Theory to Practice ed. Clare McGlynn, Erika Rackley, Rosemary Hunter (2010) Pub. Bloomsbury ISBN 9781847317278
* Fifty years of Family Law: Essays for Stephen Cretney Ed. Rebecca Probert, Chris Baron (2012) Pub. Cambridge ISBN 9781780680521
* The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Commentary" Ed. John Tobin (2019) Pub. OUP ISBN 9780191544170

### Editor

* The Futures of Legal Education and the Legal Profession with Hilary Sommerlad (2015) Pub. Hart Publishing ISBN 9781849466554

### Articles

Harris has contributed articles to:
* British Yearbook of International Law
* Child and Family Law Quarterly
* Human Rights Quarterly
* The International and Comparative Law Quarterly
* International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family
* Journal of Law and Society