Former Supreme Court president Lord Neuberger has joined One Essex Court as an arbitrator.

He spent five years at the helm of the UK's top court after becoming its second president in 2012, succeeding Lord Phillips, who led the court from its inception in October 2009.

Neuberger retired from the role at the end of September, and was replaced by Baroness Hale of Richmond, the court's first female president.

Neuberger (pictured) said: "I am very pleased to be joining One Essex Court and, having retired from the bench, I am looking forward to what I hope will be an equally stimulating time as an arbitrator. Judging and arbitration have much in common, but there are also a number of significant distinctions."

He was called to the Bar in 1974, taking silk in 1987. In 1996, he became a High Court judge assigned to the Chancery division, and stepped up to the Court of Appeal in 2004. In 2009, he succeeded Lord Anthony Clarke as Master of the Rolls.

He was knighted in 1996 and made a life peer in 2007.

Lady Hale, a specialist in family law, was Neuberger's deputy prior to being appointed as president in July. She read law at Girton College, Cambridge and after graduation taught at the University of Manchester for 18 years.

She was called to the Bar in 1969 and worked part-time as a barrister during her teaching career. In 1984, she became the first woman and youngest person to be appointed to the Law Commission, and was appointed as a QC in 1989.

Hale has been outspoken in her calls for greater gender diversity at the bar, a cause Neuberger has also thrown his support behind. Last year, in a speech at the Bar Council Law Reform Lecture, he said that he and Hale were both "keenly aware" that the Supreme Court should be leading the way on diversity, "rather than simply waiting for a 'trickle-up' effect from natural developments and efforts made lower down the system".