Alan Christopher Neal, LL.B. (Warwick), LL.M. (London School of Economics), DGLS (Stockholm), Barrister (Gray's Inn), was Professor of Law and Director of the Employment Law Research Unit until his retirement in 2019. He has been a lifetime Professor in the Zhejiang University (PRC), and Visiting Professor in the Beijing Jiao Tong University (PRC), as well as in the University of Paris II (Pantheon) and USEK (Beirut). Since 2012 he has held the position of Standing High-Level Independent Expert in the Labour Law and Social Security Law Institute of Peking University, PRC.

Before joining the Warwick Law School, Professor Neal was Professor of Law in the University of Leicester (1988-2000). He has been Visiting Professor in the University of Paris I (Sorbonne), the University of Salford, and in the University of Trento. During the academic year 2016/2017 Professor Neal held the Paul van der Heijden Chair of Social Justice in the University of Leiden, The Netherlands.

Called to the Bar of Gray's Inn in 1975, Professor Neal is a practising barrister with Cloisters (1 Pump Court, Temple) and with 2 New Street Chambers (Midland & Oxford Circuit, Leicester). He holds judicial office (since 1995) as a part-time Employment Judge (London Central), and was Convenor of the European Association of Labour Court Judges between 1996 and 2022. Throughout that time he has been the United Kingdom member of the ILO's group of senior labour judges.

Professor Neal was the founding editor and is now Scientific Director of the International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations, having been its Editor-in-Chief between 1984-1995. He sits on the editorial boards of numerous international and comparative journals, and is the General Editor of the monograph series "Studies in Employment and Social Policy" (published by Kluwer Law International).