Stanley Alexander de Smith FBA (27 March 1922 – 12 February 1974) was an English academic lawyer and author.

[1] After distinguished war service with the Royal Artillery—during which he was mentioned in despatches and awarded the Order of Leopold II and the Croix de Guerre (1940) with palms—he taught from 1946 at the London School of Economics, University of London, successively as Assistant Lecturer, Lecturer, Reader and (from 1959 to 1970) as Professor of Public Law.

[3] In 1970, de Smith returned to the University of Cambridge as Downing Professor of the Laws of England and a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College.

[5] The Cambridge Law Journal noted that de Smith "was at his happiest in postgraduate teaching and the supervision of research students, but he cared deeply about all aspects of teaching and tripos reform ... Those that knew him will remember him as a somewhat reserved person with a quiet sense of humour, though they will not have known that the appearance of reserve was the result of deafness caused by his artillery service in the war; he was invariably encouraging to his students and younger colleagues and he was generous in his assessment of others".

He was shy and gave a—perhaps deceptive—impression of diffidence, but his conversation was enlivened by a dry humour, sometimes rather reminiscent of his hero, Maitland, with whom as a constitutional lawyer he will certainly stand comparison