Masters of the Bench

Justice Nallini Pathmanathan was born in 1959 in Malaysia. She holds a degree in Physiology from the University of London and undertook the conversion course in law, prior to being called to the English Bar in 1984. She then joined Skrine in Kuala Lumpur and practiced at the Bar for 21 years. She co-authored a book entitled “The Law of Dismissal”.

Nallini is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators as well as a certified mediator.

Nallini was appointed to the Bench in 2007. She is the first female judge of South Asian ethnicity to be elevated to the superior judiciary in Malaysia. She was elevated to the Court of Appeal in 2014, and the Federal Court, the apex court in Malaysia, in 2018, where she presently sits. In 2014, she was conferred an honorary award by the King.

Nallini is a member of the Judicial Academy of Malaysia. She manages the Commercial Courts in Kuala Lumpur. She edits the Malaysian “White Book” and is the general editor of Bullen & Leake & Jacob’s Malaysian Precedents of Pleadings. She is the President of The Middle Temple Alumni Association of Malaysia and  a corporate member of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, United Kingdom.