He was educated at Westminster School and graduated from St John's College, Oxford in 1979, being the top first in law.

He was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to attend Harvard Law School and graduated with a LLM.

As a Queen's Counsel, his principal areas of practice were shipping, insurance and reinsurance, international sale of goods, commodities, conflicts of laws and arbitration.

[4] On 24 July 2015, it was announced that he would be appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal to fill one of the vacancies due to arise in the coming autumn.

[6] On 8 November 2018, at the annual Donald O'May maritime law lecture held at The Law Society in London's Chancery Lane, Hamblen gave an address on the issue of "Indemnity in time charterparties".