Professor David Weisbrot, AM
Professor of Legal Policy
Professor David Weisbrot is Professor of Legal Policy at the United States Studies Centre and Professor of Law and Governance at Macquarie University. He is also an Emeritus Professor of Law and an Honorary Professorial Fellow in Medicine at the University of Sydney.
From 1999-2009, David was President of the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) - the longest serving President in the ALRC’s history - and presided over 15 major national inquiries, including those considering: the federal civil justice system; the judicial power of the Commonwealth; civil and administrative penalties in federal regulation; the protection of human genetic information; the handling of classified and security sensitive information; gene patenting and human health; Australian privacy laws and practices; and federal secrecy laws.
David is also a Member of the Human Genetics Advisory Committee of the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and previously served on the federal International Legal Services Advisory Council (ILSAC), the Administrative Review Council (ARC), and as president and vice-president of the international association of law reform agencies. .
With an American mother and a Canadian father, and having lived most of his adult life in the Pacific Islands and Australia, David has found that comparative law and politics comes naturally to him.
David has written or edited eight books and produced over 200 official reports, journal articles and conference papers. He is a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (FAAL), an elected Member of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO), and an Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. Professor Weisbrot was previously a member of the Law Reform Commissions of NSW and Fiji, and has served as a legal consultant to several Pacific Island governments and agencies.
He holds a BA (Hons) degree from Queens College (City University of New York) in politicial science and communications, and a Juris Doctor (JD) degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is admitted to practice law in California and in New South Wales.
David was awarded a Centenary Medal by the Australian Government in 2003 for ‘services to law reform’, and in 2006 was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for ‘service to the law in the areas of law reform, education and access to legal services, and through contributions to research, analysis and policy development on a range of matters of public interest’.
