Professor Robert Stevens is the Herbert Smith Freehills Professor of English Private Law at the University of Oxford. Previously he was a Professor of commercial law at UCL, a lecturer in law at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow and Tutor in Law at Lady Margaret Hall. He is also a commercial barrister and has published widely on many aspects of private law, always seeking to show how the theory of academic law has practical relevance to the law as found in the courts. He is the author of Torts and Rights (OUP, 2007).