Professor David Ibbetson will take over from Sir Martin Harris in August of this year.
Professor David Ibbetson FBA has been elected the eighth President of Clare Hall. He will succeed Sir Martin Harris who will be retiring in the summer of 2013.
Professor Ibbetson has been Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University since 2000. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College and Warden of Leckhampton, the College's graduate student centre, and has previously been a Fellow and Senior Tutor at Magdalen College, Oxford.
His principal research interest is in legal history - in particular, ancient law, post-Conquest English law, and comparative European legal history. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003.
Professor Ibbetson said: "It is an exciting privilege to be joining Clare Hall and I look forward to leading it through the celebration of its 50th anniversary in 2016."
Clare Hall was founded in 1966 as a centre for advanced study, bringing together research scholars of different nationalities and academic disciplines, from graduate students studying for a higher degree to senior academics.
The College has 30 fellows, 25 research fellows and 165 graduate students. It also welcomes 40 visiting fellows every year who come on sabbatical leave from their home universities. Most of these academics are from overseas, giving the College a strong international flavour.