Michael Dale
Director
Professor Doctor Michael Dale is a mining lawyer based in Johannesburg. He specialises in mining, minerals, natural resources, and energy.
He has advised the mining, upstream petroleum, and construction material industries on mining projects and in regard to legislative developments for more than 30 years. He heads the our Mining Law Division.
He is an Honorary Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and is an Honorary Associate at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee in Scotland. He is the co-ordinating and a contributing author of a book on South African Mineral and Petroleum Law, is a co-author of previous books on mining legislation and practice, has contributed articles to national and international journals, has presented papers at national and international conferences on mining law and currently writes the Mining Law Chapter in the Annual Survey of South African Law. He was for many years the Chairman of the Mineral Committee and is a Council Member of the Section on Energy, Environmental, Natural Resources and Infrastructural Law of the International Bar Association, the Council's representative on the Section's Academic Advisory Group, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law. He has from time to time been a member of the Mining Titles Regulations Board of South Africa, of the panel of assessors on the Land Claims Court of South Africa and of various panels of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces. In 1983 he introduced “The Law of Prospecting and Mining” LLB course at the University of the Witwatersrand and has lectured part-time ever since in the LLB and LLM (coursework) degrees offered by the School of Law. He has recently also lectured in the Certificate Course and in short courses and seminars on aspects of Mining Law offered by the Mandela Institute.
Michael holds a BA (Unisa: 1971), LLB (WITS: 1974) and an LLD (Unisa: 1979/Thesis: “An historical and comparative study of the concept and acquisition of mineral rights”). He is a senior Director practising at our Sandton office.