Professor Dale Smith
+61 3 9035 5239 | dale.smith@unimelb.edu.au | Room 0911A
Overview
Dale Smith’s research focuses primarily on analytic legal philosophy, especially the jurisprudential writings of Ronald Dworkin. He also writes on theoretical aspects of statutory interpretation and (with Colin Campbell) on anti-discrimination law.
Dale’s research has been published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Legal Theory, Law and Philosophy, the Modern Law Review and the University of Toronto Law Journal.
His recent publications include:
- ‘The Practice-based Objection to the “Standard Picture” of How Law Works’ (2019) 10(4) Jurisprudence 502;
- ‘What Is Statutory Purpose?’ in Lisa Burton Crawford, Patrick Emerton and Dale Smith (eds), Law under a Democratic Constitution: Essays in Honour of Jeffrey Goldsworthy (Hart, 2019);
- ‘Deliberative Freedoms and the Asymmetric Features of Anti-Discrimination Law’ (with Colin Campbell) (2017) 67(3) University of Toronto Law Journal 247;
- ‘Is the High Court Mistaken about the Aim of Statutory Interpretation?’ (2016) 44(2) Federal Law Review 227; and
- ‘Agreement and Disagreement in Law’ (2015) 28(1) Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 183.
Together with Lisa Burton Crawford and Patrick Emerton, he is co-editor of a festschrift for Emeritus Professor Jeff Goldsworthy (Lisa Burton Crawford, Patrick Emerton and Dale Smith (ed), Law under a Democratic Constitution: Essays in Honour of Jeffrey Goldsworthy (Hart, 2019)).
Dale graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1998 with first class honours degrees in Law and Arts. He also holds a Masters of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne and a D.Phil in Law from the University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis was on the implications for adjudication of the debate between moral objectivists and anti-objectivists.
Prior to joining Melbourne Law School in 2014, Dale was a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Monash University. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Surrey Centre for Law and Philosophy at the University of Surrey in 2019, and a Visiting Academic at the Faculty of Laws, University College London in 2012.
Dale is a past Editor of the Australasian Journal of Legal Philosophy, and a past Treasurer of the Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy. He is currently the Associate Dean (Research) at Melbourne Law School.
Teaching
The Melbourne JD
Memberships and Affiliations
Member, Australian Society of Legal Philosophy