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Michael Coper was Professor of Law at the ANU College of Law, having been Dean of the College from 1998 to 2012. A graduate of the University of Sydney in Arts and Law in 1970, Michael was one of the seven founding fathers of the UNSW Law School in 1971 and taught there until he moved to Canberra in 1988 to take up his appointment as a Member of the Inter-State Commission. After a brief period in legal practice in the early 1990s, he was appointed as Professor of Constitutional Law at the ANU in 1995, following the retirement of the esteemed Professor Leslie Zines. His books include Freedom of Interstate Trade Under the Australian Constitution (1983), Encounters with the Australian Constitution (1987), and, as co-editor, The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia (2001). He appeared as counsel in the High Court in a number of cases, including the landmark Cole v Whitfield (1988), and was both a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and a member of the American Law Institute.

“On 2 December 2016, a conference was held to celebrate the remarkable career of Professor Michael Coper … in late 2016, soon after the completion of his Deanship at the ANU College of Law, it was timely for the CIPL community to recognise the enormous contribution made by Michael over a long and successful career in academia, government and private practice.” – James Stellios

Professor Coper was an eminent scholar of constitutional law and a champion of academic excellence.