Dr Victoria McCloud

Let’s meet… Dr Victoria McCloud

Dr Victoria McCloud, who retired as King's Bench Master in the High Court in February 2024, brings nearly two decades of distinguished judicial experience to her role as a mediator.

Having recently transitioned to portfolio practice, Victoria is now a legal strategy consultant and mediator. Alongside her mediation practice, she lectures and writes extensively on various topics within law, with recent publications including a chapter in Countering Terrorist and Criminal Financing: Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2023), as well as The Surveillance and Intelligence Law Handbook (OUP, 2006).

Throughout her career, Victoria presided over some of the most high-profile and complex cases, including defamation claims involving Donald Trump, the ‘revenge porn’ case of Georgia Harrison v. Stephen Bear, parts of the ‘Plebgate’ litigation, and the lawsuit by Nadim Zahawi MP against an Iranian publication. She also dealt with significant cases in the fields of asbestos litigation, open justice and historic sex abuse.

Her areas of expertise and academic focus span across international and national legal issues, human rights, AI and Legal Tech, e-discovery, global cross-border privacy law and Whistleblowing.

Judge McCloud was formerly a Nominated Judge for confidential Whistleblowing reports from the judiciary. She is also a key advocate for the development of common standards for the use of adaptive AI in legal document analysis, playing a prominent role in the evolving landscape of legal technology.

In 2024, Judge McCloud was ranked third in the Independent Pride List of LGBTQ changemakers, and featured in the inaugural Dow Jones Pride of Finance list. She has been widely recognized across the media, including interviews in The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, and national radio. In 2020, she was named one of the Sunday Times’ 50 Women of the Year.

As an international speaker, Judge McCloud has delivered keynote addresses on pressing topics such as cyber war crimes in Ukraine, the intersection of AI and law, and the plight of women in conflict zones. She has also trained judges across Europe, including Ukrainian judges, on cultural expertise in relation to war crimes trials arising from the Ukraine war. Her judicial training at The Hague Institute for Global Justice on the prosecution of crimes against humanity and war crimes was a highlight of her pre-Brexit career.

Extensive judicial experience & academic work

Beyond law, Judge McCloud holds a PhD in visual psychophysics from Oxford University, where she specialised in the computational aspects of human 3D vision. She is a Chartered Psychologist, Advisory Head of Interdisciplinary Collaborations at the Sorbonne, and an Associate Fellow at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. She also served as a Visiting Professor at Tashkent State University of Law.

Judge McCloud’s extensive judicial and academic background, combined with her experience in complex, high-stakes dispute resolution, makes her a uniquely qualified mediator. She is committed to facilitating constructive dialogue and helping parties reach fair, sustainable outcomes.