Kent Law School Professor Diamond Ashiagbor has been elected as an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court.

Honorary Masters of the Bench are recognised by the Inn’s members as distinguished individuals from other walks of life who have excelled in their respective professions. Professor Ashiagbor, who was elected at a ‘Bench Call’ ceremony on Wednesday 31 October, joins a group of 141 Honorary Benchers whose number include Professor Kate Malleson (Queen Mary University of London), Clive Stafford Smith (Director of Reprieve), Loretta Lynch (83rd Attorney General of the United States), Sir Mark Rylance (actor) and Sir Paul Nurse (geneticist and cell biologist, Nobel Prize winner).

Masters of the Bench, or Benchers, are responsible for the governance of the Inn. They are elected by their peers from among the Inn’s members who have been Called to the Bar; the majority are Queen’s Counsel or senior members of the judiciary.

Professor Ashiagbor joined Kent Law School last month. She was previously Professor of Law and Director of Research at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. She has research interests in labour/employment law; regional integration (the European Union and the African Union); labour law, trade and development; human rights, equality and multiculturalism; economic sociology of law; socio-legal studies; law and the humanities. She is the author of the monograph The European Employment Strategy: Labour Market Regulation and New Governance, which won the Peter Birks/Society of Legal Scholars Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2006.