Michael Zander is an Emeritus Professor Law at LSE.
Michael Zander took a Double First Honours Degree at Cambridge, obtained a First Class in the LLB and was awarded the Whewell Scholarship in International Law. He took an LLM at Harvard and worked for a year with Sullivan & Cromwell on Wall Street. He then returned to this country, qualified as a solicitor and practised for a period before joining the Law Department in 1963. He was appointed to a Chair in 1977. He was convener of the Law Department from 1984 to 1988 and again in 1997-98. He was made an Honorary QC in 1997. In 2001 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the LSE. In 2005 he was appointed a Senior Fellow of the British Academy. He retired from full-time teaching in 1998.
In 2010 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws at King's College, London. The citation stated: 'He has devoted a long and active career to the study, teaching, practice and improvement of the law, and has made outstanding contributions in both the academic and public spheres. There is no greater authority in the fields to which he has devoted himself: criminal procedure, civil procedure, legal profession and legal services ... The central mission of his professional life has been to make the justice system work better.'
In September 2015 Michael Zander was the recipient of the Halsbury Lifetime Contribution Award. (The Halsbury Legal Awards were instituted in 2013. The previous recipients were Sir Sydney Kentridge QC in 2013 and Lord Judge, the then recently retired Lord Chief Justice, in 2014.)
For Sir Sydney Kentridge QC's letter about Professor Zander's career, in support of the Halsbury Lifetime Contribution Award click here.
On 19 October 2023 the Law School took note of Michael Zander’s 90th birthday by hosting his lecture: “Promoting Change in the Legal System – a Memoir”. For the text of the lecture click here, or watch the video on youtube.