Sir Stephen Charles Laws, KCB, KC (born 28 January 1950) is a British lawyer and civil servant who served as the First Parliamentary Counsel between 2006 and 2012.
[2] After a year lecturing at Bristol, Laws was called to the Bar at Middle Temple, and following pupillage and a brief period practising, he joined the Home Office in 1975 as a legal assistant.
Alongside the Treasury Solicitor and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Laws was one of the three most senior lawyers in the Civil Service.
On retiring as First Parliamentary Counsel in 2012, Laws was asked in an interview for Civil Service World whether he had been a victim of nominative determinism.
He replied that his choice of career was more influenced by his father's interest in the law, but conceded that “hereditary nominative determinism” may have been at work.