Rosemary Langford

Professor Rosemary Langford is the Harold Ford Professor of Commercial Law at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, a position to which she was appointed in 2023 in recognition of her outstanding scholarship and leadership in corporate and trusts law. She currently serves as Director of the Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law, Associate Director of the Corporate Law and Financial Regulation Program within that centre, Director of Studies for Commercial Law in the Master of Laws program, and member of the JD Board of Examiners for Corporations Law. Langford holds a Bachelor of Laws with first class honours and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in French and German from the University of Melbourne, as well as a PhD in Law from Monash University. Before entering academia, she practised as a lawyer with Arthur Robinson & Hedderwicks, now Allens Linklaters. At Melbourne Law School, she teaches a range of subjects, including Corporations Law, Corporate Governance, and Directors’ Duties.

Langford's research focuses on directors’ duties, fiduciary duties, conflicts of interest, corporate purpose, social licence to operate, and the governance and regulation of charities. She has authored influential books, including Directors’ Duties: Principles and Application (Federation Press, 2014) and Company Directors’ Duties and Conflicts of Interest (Oxford University Press, 2019). Her articles have appeared in prestigious journals such as the Law Quarterly Review, Cambridge Law Journal, Modern Law Review, University of New South Wales Law Journal, and Sydney Law Review, with notable publications including “Best Interests: Multifaceted But Not Unbounded” (Cambridge Law Journal, 2016), “Purpose-Based Governance: A New Paradigm” (UNSW Law Journal, 2020), and “Doing the Job That’s Required?: Social Licence to Operate and Directors’ Duties” (Sydney Law Review, 2022). She has secured major funding, including an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship for her four-year project “Purpose beyond Profit: Modernising Corporations Law,” which examines corporate purpose and directors’ duties in light of environmental, social, and technological challenges, and a prior ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award for “Restoring Public Trust in Charities – Reforming Governance and Enforcement.” Langford edits the directors’ duties section of the Company and Securities Law Journal and holds memberships on the Corporations Committee and Not-for-Profit Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia, as well as the Laws Committee of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the SSRN eJournal on Fiduciary Law and is a member of the Society of Corporate Law Academics. Her scholarship has been presented nationally and internationally, influencing corporate law discourse.

Professional Email: rosemary.langford@unimelb.edu.au