After Blair was elected as Prime Minister, Falconer was created a life peer and made Solicitor General for England and Wales.

Falconer was named Shadow Justice Secretary under the acting leadership of Harriet Harman in 2015, and continued in this role after the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the party, until he resigned on 26 June 2016.

Falconer became a flatmate of Tony Blair when they were both young barristers in London in the late 1970s in Wandsworth, having first met as pupils at rival Scottish schools in the 1960s.

This was in contrast to the sacking of Dome chief executive Jennie Page just one month after the fiasco of the New Millennium eve opening night.

In 2003 Falconer joined the Cabinet as the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, becoming also Lord Chancellor "for the interim period" before the office was planned to be abolished.

The government argued that the position of a cabinet minister as a judge and head of the judiciary was no longer appropriate and would not be upheld by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Falconer announced his intention not to use the Lord Chancellor's power to sit as a judge and stopped wearing the traditional robe and wig of office.

"[6] In his role as Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Falconer sought to make it easier for government bodies to refuse to release documents under the Freedom of Information Act (2000), on the grounds that they are too expensive and too time-consuming for civil servants to find.

Media elements reported this change as a 'backtracking', and Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, was quoted as saying "This raises the strong possibility that the government will decide to leave the current arrangements untouched".

In February 2008, Falconer told a BBC radio programme that the government should require certain news articles to be removed from online archives during sensitive trials.

[9] In 2014, Falconer proposed the Assisted Dying Bill to the House of Lords, which seeks to legalise euthanasia in the UK for those who have less than six months to live, building on the experience of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act.

[10] Falconer was named Shadow Secretary of State for Justice under the acting leadership of Harriet Harman in 2015, and continued in this role after the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the party, until—along with dozens of his colleagues—he resigned on 26 June 2016.

[15] On 8 July 2008, Falconer joined US law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a senior counsel,[16] where he remained as late as April 2021.

[17] At this time, the Greensill scandal dragged him into the mire over his advice to extramural firms in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, which he once called "the gift that keeps on giving" for lawyers; however, he regretted saying this.

[24] Falconer lost over five stone between 2012 and 2014, consuming only Diet Coke and apples apart from dinner, eschewing tea, coffee and alcohol, and jogging for 45 minutes a day.