Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn, was a British lawyer and judge. The son of a Scottish clergyman, he was educated in Scotland and England, before joining the English bar. He was little known to the legal world before he was elevated from the junior bar to a puisne judgeship in the Court of Queen's Bench by Lord Campbell in 1859, a position he held until 1876, when he was appointed to the Court of Appeal. In October of that year, he was the first person to be appointed as a law lord under the provisions of the newly enacted Appellate Jurisdiction Act. He retired in 1886 and died ten years later. Blackburn was considered the highest authority on common law and his judgments continue to be cited today.

Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House of Lords, which included acting as the highest appellate court for most domestic matters.