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Professor David Spencer
David has been at ACU since 2012 and was previously Professor and Deputy Provost of the University. In 2014 he was appointed Executive Dean (Acting), in the newly established Faculty of Law and Business before resuming his duties as Deputy Provost. Between 2017/18 he was Professor and Associate Dean of Learning & Teaching in the Faculty of Law and Business. Previously, he was Professor and Associate Dean (Academic) of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at La Trobe University. Prior to that, he had been Associate Dean (Teaching & Learning) for the Faculty of Law at Macquarie University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Macquarie University, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney and a Master of Laws (by Research) from the University of Technology Sydney. In 1995, David attended the 29th Program of Instruction for Lawyers at Harvard University Law School where he studied the art of negotiation from Professor Roger Fisher (the author of Getting to Yes). David is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW and the High Court of Australia and up until 2006 held an unrestricted practicing certificate from the NSW Law Society.
David's main areas of research include contract law, civil procedure, dispute resolution and Higher Education theory and practice. He has authored: over 100 articles 7 books and monographs 4 book chapters over 70 casenotes in refereed journals and, has been awarded a number of research grants. He is co-author of Dispute Resolution in Australia: Cases, Commentary & Materials (Lawbook Co, 4th ed, 2019) Mediation Law & Practice (2006, Cambridge University Press) and, Becoming a Lawyer: Success at Law School (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed, 2014). He is author of: Principles of Dispute Resolution (Lawbook Co, 2nd ed, 2016) Law Briefs:Contract Law (Pearson Longman, 2008), and Title 13.2: Mediation and Conciliation in Laws of Australia (Thomson Reuters). He is currently co-investigator with the University of NSW, Heriot Watt University and the University of Alberta on an Australian Research Council project researching the ability and possibility of deaf people to sit on juries.
David is the Chief Editorial COnsultant of the Australasian Dispute Resolution Journal (Thomson Reuters) where he also writes the journal's quarterly case notes and is a contributing author of the Australian Law Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2010) and the Laws of Australia (Thomson Reuters).
In 2005 David won the Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor's Outstanding Teacher Award. In 2006 he won a Macquarie University Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning and in the same year a national Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning from the Carrick Institute (subsequently the Australian Learning & Teaching Council). In 2017/18 he was winner of the 2017 "Andrea Durbach Award for Human Rights Scholarship" awarded by the Australian Human Rights Institute and the Australian Journal for Human Rights as lead author for the article, "Justice is blind as long as it isn't deaf: Excluding deaf people from jury duty - an Australian human rights breach" (2017) 23(3) Australian Journal of Human Rights 332, 332-350 (awarded 22 March 2018).
Former practising Solicitor admitted to the Supreme Court of NSW and the High Court of Australia. Associate member of the Law Institute of Victoria. Accredited mediator and Associate of the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia (now Resolution Institute).
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