Neville Brown played a crucial role in the development of comparative law as an important scholarly subject. His work on French law and the differences between the common law and civilian legal systems brought him worldwide recognition and honours in the UK and abroad. He served as Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Birmingham from 1966 to 1990.

Lionel Neville Brown was born in 1923. In 1941, after Wolverhampton Grammar School, where he excelled in Latin and Greek, he won an open scholarship to read classics at Pembroke College, Cambridge, but was called up almost immediately. He became a radar mechanic in the RAF and returned to Cambridge only after the war. He graduated in 1948 with a double first in classics and Law, and seemed destined for life as a solicitor. However, after spending 1951 at the University of Lyons he decided on an academic career. After a short spell at the University of Sheffield, he moved to Birmingham in 1955 and spent the rest of his career there, rising to senior lecturer in 1957, reader in 1964 and Professor of Comparative Law in 1966.

While on sabbatical at the University of Michigan in 1960, Brown agreed to collaborate with the great comparatist Harry Lawson and a brilliant Scots lawyer, Sandy Anton, on a new edition of Amos and Walton’s Introduction to French Law, first published in 1935. The second edition of Amos and Walton was published in 1963. Four years later Brown published his second major work, French Administrative Law, co-authored with J. F. Garner.

In 1970 Brown became Dean of the Law Faculty at Birmingham, an office he held for four years. During his tenure he laid the groundwork for the introduction in 1976 of Birmingham’s pioneering Law with French degree, a four-year programme involving a year at the University of Limoges.

Brown possessed a considerable talent for combining academic work with travel to exotic destinations. He served as an external examiner at the University of the West Indies in the mid-1970s and in the 1980s counselled the University of Mauritius on setting up a law school. Less successful was his attempt to establish an academic link with the Law Faculty in Nairobi. Although a scheme was agreed, economic problems in Kenya rendered it short-lived.

While he was Dean, Brown persuaded the faculty to introduce the study of European Community law into the undergraduate curriculum — and to make it compulsory. In this, he showed an awareness of the role and future significance to the UK of Community law which far outstripped that of most of his colleagues.

The new course was introduced in 1972, some three months before Britain’s formal accession to the European Community. It gave Birmingham graduates a headstart over their peers in the application of this new source of law. The legal profession took another 20 years to recognise the importance of Community law and to make it a formal requirement for admission.

Brown’s familiarity with the civil law made him ideally placed to explain to common lawyers the European Community’s essentially civilian legal system. His talent for this task was nowhere better displayed than in his famous book on the European Court of Justice, jointly written with Francis Jacobs and first published in 1977.

After the Maastricht treaty of 1992, however, Brown became increasingly disillusioned with European integration, in particular the encroachment into fields beyond what he regarded as necessary to sustain a common market. He took to circulating sceptical pamphlets and articles to colleagues whose attitude to the European Union (a term he disliked) he considered insufficiently critical.

Between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s Brown served as president of the Birmingham social security appeals tribunal, adjudicating on more than 2,000 appeals. His long career brought him honorary degrees from the universities of Limoges and Laval in Quebec. In 1988 he was appointed OBE for services to English law. France appointed him an Officier (and later a Commandeur) dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques in recognition of his contribution to the law, language and culture of France.

A man of enormous charm, Brown was an excellent host and entertaining guest. He loved classical music and was a frequent attender at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. His beautiful garden provided another abiding interest. He is survived by his wife, Mary, whom he married in 1957, their three sons and one daughter.

Professor L. Neville Brown, OBE, legal scholar, was born on July 29, 1923. He died on November 6, 2008, aged 85