David Feldman (legal scholar)
David John Feldman is a British legal academic, author and former judge. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge, and served as an international judge of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the Dayton Agreement from 2002 to 2010. He is known for having shaped the development of civil liberties and human rights law in the United Kingdom.
Feldman is an Emeritus Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, an Honorary Bencher at Lincoln's Inn and an Academic Associate at 39 Essex Chambers. He has served as Chairman of the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge and the Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science, and as President of the Society of Legal Scholars.
Early life and education
Feldman was born in Brighton, the grandson of immigrants from Eastern Europe, and received his early education at Brighton Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College. Upon graduating, he applied unsuccessfully to read Law and History at the University of Bristol. Having been advised that confining his application to one subject would improve his chances, he applied the following year to read law. His choice of law over history was influenced by his childhood admiration of Marshall Hall and Perry Mason. He was accepted to Exeter College, Oxford to read law and graduated in 1976 with a first-class honours B.A. in Jurisprudence. He subsequently also received his first-class honours B.C.L. and D.C.L. from Exeter College, Oxford. During his time at Oxford, he studied under Stephen Cretney, a future Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Bristol.Career
Academic career
In 1976, Cretney advised Feldman of an available lectureship in law at the University of Bristol. Feldman chose to accept the lectureship over completing the Bar course, and worked as lecturer in law at the University of Bristol until 1989, when he was appointed Reader in Law. That year, he was also Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.In 1992, he was appointed Barber Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Birmingham, and he served concurrently as Dean of the Faculty of Law from 1997 to 2000. In 2000, he was appointed Professor of Law, which he performed alongside his responsibilities as Legal Adviser to Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Human Rights until 2004. He also took up his judicial appointment at the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in this period.
In 2004, he was appointed Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. From 2006 to 2009, he was Chairman of the Faculty Board of Law. Thereon, he took on a number of senior honorary visiting fellowships, including the Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at the University of Melbourne and the Sir John C. Smith Senior Visiting Scholarship at the University of Nottingham. From 2013 to 2016, he was Chairman of the Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science, University of Cambridge. He was President of the Society of Legal Scholars from 2010 to 2011, and the outgoing Director of the Centre for Public Law at the University of Cambridge. Feldman retired as Rouse Ball Professor of English Law on 30 September 2018, and was succeeded by Louise Gullifer.