After having been appointed a ‘Law Lord’, Brenda Hale wrote an essay asking the question: ‘Am I Really a Law Lord?’. Using the occasion of her entré into the higher echelons of the English judiciary, Lady Hale puzzled about the application of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876, by which she had gained her position. Written with a canny mix of serious inquiry into the case law on women’s equality and tongue-in-cheek commentary, Lady Hale explained the terms of the 1876 statute. Parliament had authorised the English monarch to appoint ‘qualified persons’ to be Lords of Appeal in Ordinary – if such individuals met the qualifications of service for two years or more as a High Court judge, or fifteen years as a barrister and, in some instances, as a solicitor. When enacted in 1876, women in England could not be lawyers, let alone judges. The issue Lady Hale raised was whether the term ‘qualified persons’ was limited to men or could – and should – be read to welcome a broader group of people who since 1876 had, by dint of social and political movements, succeeded in at least some respects in obtaining law’s recognition as ‘persons’. To answer, Lady Hale analysed relevant statutory and common law precedents and integrated the history of decisions on women’s rights in the UK with decisions in the United States Supreme Court.