John Finnis

John Mitchell Finnis was born in 1940 and is an Australian legal philosopher and jurist specializing in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. An original interpreter of Aristotle and Aquinas who counted Germain Grisez as a major influence and collaborator, he was Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1989 to 2010, where he is now professor emeritus, and also holds emeritus status as the Biolchini Family Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School. He advised several Australian state governments, chiefly Queensland and Western Australia, on their relations with the federal government and the United Kingdom, and practiced at the English Bar in the High Court and Court of Appeal as a member of Grays Inn, being appointed an honorary Queens Counsel in 2017. In the 2019 Queens Birthday Honours for Australia he was appointed a Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia for his service as a jurist and legal scholar, and he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2023 for services to legal scholarship. Among his doctoral students are United States Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Federal Court of Australia Justice Susan Kenny.