In 2008, he became the fourth solicitor to be appointed a High Court judge, after Michael Sachs in 1993, Lawrence Collins in 2000, and Henry Hodge in 2004.
[2] Hickinbottom's appointment as a High Court judge was announced in September 2008, with his assignment to the King's Bench Division.
In 2017 he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal and therefore, as is customary, was also made a member of the Privy Council,[3][4] entitling him to the honorific "The Right Honourable".
[7] In 2016 Hickinbottom purchased a residential property in Llandaff next door to a Chinese restaurant, the long-established Summer Palace.
[10] On 16 July 2007, sitting as a deputy High Court Judge, he upheld an application for judicial review against the decision to slaughter Shambo, a sacred black Friesian bull at the Hindu Skanda Vale Temple near Llanpumsaint in Wales which tested positive for bovine tuberculosis, holding that the Welsh government had failed to carry out the balancing exercise required by Article 9 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (freedom of religion).