He was trained as an system engineer at Imperial College London and received his legal education at the University of Hong Kong. He began studying the systemic effects of legal reforms on the late Qing imperial system of China during his doctoral studies at the University of Oxford. Whilst his continuing interest is in the non-mathematical historic-legal stability analysis of constitutional systems, he is also interested in the laws governing energy production and supply systems. At the Faculty, he sometimes teaches Legal History and Energy Law.