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Keen to fill his evenings after work as a young lawyer in an Essex solicitor’s office, Roy Goode, who left school at 16, decided he ought to write a book. He was not, however, sure what subject to choose.

Leafing alphabetically through titles in a legal reference volume, he came across the topic of hire purchase. He knew nothing about such credit arrangements, but noticed no one had touched the issue for several decades.

It was typical of the curiosity-driven ambition displayed by Goode, who has died aged 93. His pioneering approach eventually helped him become a leading expert on commercial law. He founded, in 1980, the postgraduate Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS) at what is now Queen Mary University of London, and was later appointed professor of English law at Oxford University.

Goode’s first book, Hire-Purchase Law and Practice (1962), appeared at a time when HP agreements were becoming widely available for consumer goods, including cars. They were criticised for the way they operated and, due to their popularity, even affected the country’s overall money-supply figures.

Research for and publication of his authoritative work brought Goode to the attention of the prominent London law firm Victor Mishcon & Co, where he eventually became a partner in 1966; Lord Crowther, the former editor of the Economist, nominated him to serve on a government inquiry into consumer credit in 1968. The Crowther report that followed laid the foundations for the 1974 Consumer Credit Act, which regulated loans, provided rebates for customers who settled debts early and made companies liable for faulty goods.

An inspiring and entertaining teacher, generous in making time available to students, Goode was praised for his clarity of thought and commitment to public service. His enthusiasm for combining practical legal experience with intellectual rigour became the academic model through which generations of young commercial lawyers have passed. One colleague described him as the “father of modern English commercial law”.

Goode was born in Portsmouth into a Jewish family. His father, Samuel, was a naval outfitter; his mother, Bloom (nee Zeid), a saleswoman, marketing Rediffusion televisions and vacuum cleaners; she also wrote stories for True Confessions magazine.

Educated at Highgate school, north London, Roy left the classroom early, in 1949, to take up articles with a solicitor’s firm in Portsmouth at a time when training positions were difficult to obtain.

While working in the courts, Goode completed both his Law Society exams and, as an external student, a law degree with London University. His two years of national service were in the army’s legal aid section, latterly in Cyprus, where he rose to the rank of acting corporal; he later recounted drawing up a treaty permitting British troops to re-enter parts of the Middle East based on his experience of landlords’ rights to inspect tenants’ premises.

In 1957, he moved to a law firm in Braintree, Essex, where he used his spare time to research hire-purchase legislation. He subsequently transferred to London, joining Victor Mishcon & Co. In 1964, he married Catherine Rueff. They met at a party and were engaged within a month: it was love at first sight. She later worked for the marriage guidance charity Relate.

Goode’s expanding financial expertise led him into academia: a chance expression of interest over a meal in a Chinese restaurant resulted in his recruitment in 1971 as professor of law at Queen Mary’s College, where he later established the CCLS, to bring together practising commercial lawyers with academics in the field.

Now based in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, near the Royal Courts of Justice, the centre has continued to grow. More than a thousand master’s and doctoral students from around the world are currently enrolled. There has been a scholarship scheme named in Goode’s honour since 2011.

Maintaining links with CCLS, in 1990 Goode moved to Oxford University, where he was appointed Norton Rose professor of English law and became a fellow of St John’s College.

He also served on the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, and the Department of Trade and Industry’s advisory committee on arbitration, and chaired the Pension Law Review Committee (1992-93) – set up following the scandal over Robert Maxwell’s theft of about £480m from the Mirror Group’s pension fund. Its report led to improvements enshrined in the Pensions Act 1995.

Goode made pivotal contributions to international treaties such as the Cape Town Convention and was a leading figure in Unidroit, the international body seeking the harmonisation of commercial and private law across borders. In the UK, he was chair from 1994 to 1996 of the executive committee of Justice, the legal reform charity, and a volunteer at the Camden Community Law Centre.

He wrote almost 40 textbooks including Commercial Law (1982), Legal Problems of Credit and Security (1982) and Principles of Corporate Insolvency Law (1990), each with several later editions. Interviewed in later years, he expressed regret for the “excessive hours which [commercial] law firms demand of our brightest and best, who are left with little time for a social life if they aspire to a partnership”.

Goode was appointed OBE in 1972, advanced to CBE in 1994, and knighted for services to academic law in 2000. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1988, qualified as a barrister and made a QC in 1990. He continued to teach university seminars into his 90s and had been due to deliver a lecture shortly before he died.

Away from law, Goode maintained a lifelong interest in chess. In his youth he played for his county, Hampshire, and in retirement set up a chess club to teach the game to children in an Oxford primary school. He collected old British county maps, was a member of the Reform Club and enjoyed browsing in bookshops.

He is survived by Catherine, and their daughter, Naomi.

• Royston Miles Goode, academic and solicitor, born 6 April 1933; died 24 June 2026