Nicholas Richard Cowdery AO, KC (born 19 March 1946), is a barrister who served as the Director of Public Prosecutions for the Australian state of New South Wales from 1994 to 2011.

Cowdery was appointed the director of public prosecutions for New South Wales in 1994, and ended his sixteen-year tenure in 2011.

During his term as NSW Director of Public Prosecutions he was, according to Phillip Adams "... an outspoken critic of the pace and style of drug reform, .... and of the mandatory sentencing regimes in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

[3][4][5] Cowdery's notable successful prosecutions include Ivan Milat, Gordon Wood, and Keli Lane.

Cowdery is president of the International Commission of Jurists (Australian Section), chair of the National Human Rights Committee of the Law Council of Australia, a director and patron of the Justice Reform Initiative, and a past president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties.