Reed took on a lower public profile compared to his predecessor Lady Hale, who had overseen major constitutional cases during her tenure relating to Brexit legislation.

But he still had to rule on some of the most notable cases which have often been subjects for public controversy and conflict. In 2023, he jointly gave lead judgment in the Rwanda case, ruling that the government’s policy for dealing with asylum seekers was unlawful.

He also wrote the lead judgment in the cases of R v Hayes and R v Palombo, allowing their appeals and quashing their convictions for conspiracy to defraud.

He revealed in a 2022 interview with Counsel Magazine that he had been able to ‘focus more narrowly’ on the internal workings of the court compared with Hale. He had also made greater use of statistics to measure the number of judgments outstanding and the workload of each judge.