Britain's most senior family judge was appointed in 2005 to a furore: he did not come from the family division but was an appeal judge with a commercial background, originally from the same chambers as Lord Falconer of Thoroton, then Lord Chancellor, and with little (although some) experience of family cases. Sir Mark, 70, has proved the doom-mongers wrong: a popular choice among senior judges generally he is managing the hot seat of family law deftly and with skill. The one big disappointment is that his wish, and that of his colleagues, to open up the family courts has not materialised after a u-turn by ministers. This led to a decision that hearings would not be generally open to the media - and hearings in magistrates' courts that are now presumed open will be presumed closed unless there is an specific application. On the plus side, he is overseeing procedural reforms to speed up the hearing of childcare cases and cut delays generally by devolving work downwards. Family courts remain in the line of fire of fathers' groups but Sir Mark disagrees that fathers generally receive a raw deal. Opening up the family courts, he believes, would have dispelled that myth. The son of the distinguished academic Professor Harold Potter, Sir Mark went to The Perse School in Cambridge and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1961 and joined Fountain Court Chambers, the commercial set. He took silk in 1980; became a High Court judge in 1988; presiding judge on the Northern Circuit from 1991-94 and an appeal judge in 1996. In 2006 he ruled against a lesbian couple who had wed in Canada, saying that their same-sex partnership could not be recognised as a "marriage" under English law. A trustee of Somerset House, Sir Mark is married to Undine, an artist, and has two sons. He enjoys golf and tennis.

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