John F. Larkin KC is former Attorney General for Northern Ireland. He studied law at Queen's University Belfast and afterwards he was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland and practised as a barrister. In 1989, he was appointed as Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penal Law at Trinity College Dublin. In the 1990s he resumed fulltime practice at the Northern Ireland Bar where he specialised in constitutional and administrative law, civil liberties and human rights. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2001 and for the ten years before his appointment as Attorney General for Northern Ireland his practice had been mainly in Constitutional and Administrative Law and Human Rights.

He was the first person to hold the office of Attorney General for Northern Ireland separately since its functions were assumed by the Attorney General for England and Wales in 1972. He was the first holder of the office not to be a politician sitting in either the Parliament of Northern Ireland, at Stormont, or the UK Parliament. In May 2014 he was reappointed for a further term of two years, and in September 2015 his appointment was extended until May 2019. In May 2019 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland reappointed him as Attorney General for Northern Ireland until June 2020.