Professor Doctor Michael Dale is a mineral and petroleum lawyer based in Johannesburg. He focusses on the law relating to prospecting, mining, exploration, and production, of minerals and petroleum, and heads Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa Inc’s mineral and petroleum law department.

His clients include major local and international mining houses and mining industry representative bodies. He has advised the mining (precious metals, precious stones, and base minerals), upstream petroleum (oil and gas), and construction material (stone, sand and clay) industries on mining law and in regard to legislative developments for more than 45 years. He has frequently made written and oral submissions on behalf of the mining and upstream petroleum industries to Government Departments and to Parliament.

He has for many years been, and still is, an Honorary Professor (and prior to that a Visiting Professor) at the University of the Witwatersrand and for many years has been, and still is, an Honorary Senior Lecturer (and prior to that an Honorary Associate) at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy of the University of Dundee in Scotland. In 1983 he introduced 'The Law of Prospecting and Mining' LLB course at the University of the Witwatersrand and thereafter for many years lectured in the LLB and LLM (coursework) degrees offered by the School of Law and in the Post-Graduate Certificate Course and in short courses and seminars on aspects of Mining Law offered by the Mandela Institute, and also lectured at the University of Pretoria periodically to geologists and to officers of the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. He is the co-ordinating and a contributing author of a book published by LexisNexis on South African Mineral and Petroleum Law, is a co-author of previous books on mining legislation and notarial practice, has contributed articles to national and international journals, has presented papers at national and international conferences on mining law, and for many years wrote the Mining Law Chapter in the Annual Survey of South African Law which was published by Jutas.

He was for many years the Chairman of the Mineral Committee and a Council Member, of the Section on Energy, Environmental, Natural Resources and Infrastructural Law of the International Bar Association, the Council's representative on the Section's Academic Advisory Group, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law. He has from time to time been a member of the Mining Titles Regulations Board of South Africa, of the panel of assessors on the Land Claims Court of South Africa, and of various panels of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces (now part of the Legal Practice Council).

Michael Dale is a leading lawyer for Energy & Infrastructure