Professor Cowdery was the Director of Public Prosecutions for the State of New South Wales from 1994 to 2011. That Office is the largest prosecuting agency in Australia. [See www.odpp.nsw.gov.au]

He is now: an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Sydney Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney; and an Adjunct Professor Visiting Professorial Fellow in the Faculties’ of Law in the Universities of NSW and of Wollongong.

He was educated at Sydney Grammar School and the University of Sydney where he was a resident of St Paul’s College (and where he is now an Honorary Academic Fellow). He was admitted as a Barrister in 1971 after undergraduate employment in the office of the Commonwealth Deputy Crown Solicitor in Sydney. He commenced practice (1971 – 1975) as a public defender in Papua New Guinea (based in Port Moresby, Rabaul and Lae at various times).

From 1975 until 1994 he was in private practice at the Sydney Bar, where he practised largely in criminal law (prosecuting and defending), common law, administrative law and some commercial law. He appeared in most Australian jurisdictions. He is also a member of the Irish Bar. He appeared in, among other cases, the prosecutions of the late Justice Lionel Murphy (of the High Court of Australia) and of the late Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (former Premier of the State of Queensland). He appeared in the Blackburn Royal Commission in 1989/90 and was counsel assisting the Brennan TRG inquiry in 1991. In 1987 he was appointed one of Her Majesty’s Counsel (QC – later KC). He was an Acting (“Associate”) Judge of the District Court of NSW for periods in 1988, 1989 and 1990.

He was a member of the NSW Sentencing Council for its first 13 years and is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Sydney Institute of Criminology and of the Criminal Law Committee of the NSW Bar Association. He is Chaira member of the National Human Rights Committee of  the Law Council of Australia. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and an Honorary Fellow of the Australasian College of Biomedical Scientists. (He is a former member of the DNA Review Panel, the Advisory Panel of the National Institute of Forensic Sciences, the Advisory Committee of the DNA Laboratory, NSW ICPMR and of the National Child Sexual Assault Law Reform Committee. He was a Board Member of the Black Dog Institute for its first ten years. He is a former President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties and of the International Commission of Jurists, Australian Section.)

He was President of the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP) from 1999 to 2005 and is an Honorary Member and Chair of the Senator of the Association and was awardedits Medal of Honour in 2011. [See www.iap-association.org] He was inaugural Co-Chair of the Human Rights Institute (HRI) of the International Bar Association (IBA) from its creation

in 1995 until 2000 and is an Honorary Life Member of the Council of the IBA. [See www.ibanet.org] He is a life member of LAWASIA. He has consulted widely among Pacific countries and in Asia and Africa on criminal law systems.He is a life member of LAWASIA and a member of the Australian Sceptics a Campaign Champion of Just Reinvest NSW of which he is a member of its Strategic Directions Committee.

He was appointed a Member in the Order of Australia (AM) in 2003 “for service to the development and practice of criminal law, and for fostering international relations in the area of human rights”. He has received many domestic and international awards. He is the author of “Getting Justice Wrong: myths, media and crime” (Allen & Unwin, 2001),and co-author of “Frank and Fearless” (New South Publishing, 2019) and author of “Discretion in Criminal Justice” (LexisNexis, 2022..

Professor Nicholas Cowdery AM QC, was honoured by promotion to Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) in the Queen's Birthday Honours list 2019 “for distinguished service to the law, to the protection of human rights, to professional legal bodies, and to the community”. 

The TiARA Committee thanks Nicholas Cowdery AO QKC and his wife Joy for their contributions to awareness and research into tick-induced allergies and looks forward to Nicholas’s continuing as our Co-chair long into the future!