David Anderson (barrister)

David Anderson QC (born 5 July 1961) is a British barrister who was the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation in the United Kingdom between 2011 and 2017.

Anderson was born in Edinburgh and brought up there and in Elgin, Moray, by his schoolteacher parents Eric Anderson, of the kilt-making family Kinloch Anderson & Sons, and Poppy Anderson (nee Mason) of Skipton in North Yorkshire. The family left Scotland in 1970, moving to Abingdon-on-Thames and later to Shrewsbury. Anderson was educated at the Edinburgh Academy and the Dragon School, Oxford, before winning a King's Scholarship to Eton College (1974-1978) and an Open Scholarship from there to New College Oxford where he read Ancient and Modern History under Robin Lane Fox (1979-1982). This was followed by an accelerated law degree at Downing College Cambridge (1982-1984) and a vocational year at the Inns of Court School of Law in London (1984-85).

Anderson began his legal career at Covington & Burling in Washington DC (1985-86) and, after pupillage at 1 Brick Court, was a stagiaire in the private office of the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Lord Cockfield, at the European Commission in Brussels (1987-1988).